Category: pattern

Tipping On Tuesday

This morning I started Tatting Tea Tuesday with a glass of iced Refresh tea then headed into town for a few errands and a doctor appointment. I happened to arrive a little early so pulled out a shuttle, starting a butterfly to empty it. A lady sitting in the waiting room started asking some questions about what I was doing. I was very happy☺to talk to her about tatting. She asked what the end result was so I showed her my Heart’s Honor bookmark that I had just finished. She was quite impressed with it. She also asked about how you knew how to make something, if there were patterns. So I showed her the pattern of the Flag Pin. That’s where she saw the name of my blog, which really tickled her. Then her mother came out from her appointment and the daughter wanted me to show her what I was doing. For a few minutes there I had two very interested people to share tatting with. It was a very good morning.

This is what I worked on this week, at least when I could tat. I worked on this for over a week as there was so many other things to do. Including working on the pattern for it. The pattern is coming along pretty well, but every time I start on it I see something else I should probably do with it, to make it better. But it is much closer to being done.

If I can remember how to do it I’ll be posting the pattern for the Flag Pin I shared on this post, so keep an eye on the patterns over on the right. This was designed in a hurry but I haven’t had time to re-visit it to make it easier. But as Independence Day is approaching I thought I would share what I have in case someone else would like to make it for the holiday.

“All who would win joy, must share it; happiness was born a twin” Lord Byron

Tipping = tatting in public

And the name is..

Thank you to all who offered name suggestions for my bookmark. I had some great suggestions. I heard from a few people that there was some trouble leaving a comment. Thank you, Shannon, for emailing your suggestion when you had trouble.
I pondered quite a bit over the name, wrote them out to see how they looked, then pondered some more. I showed the bookmark to my daughter, who immediately thought of an award like a purple heart even though it wasn’t purple. Her idea kept percolating in my mind and the name I’ve finally decided on is “Heart’s Honor”. So I guess she’s the winner.

©Wanda Salmans 2011

I’m still working on the pattern for it, getting all the stitch counts and joins correct. I’m getting to do all kinds of things with the diagram that was talked about in the Design-Tat class. I know there are some things that could be done better but I’m leaving the drawing the way it is this time. After you get so far, going back and correcting can sometimes mean going back to, or almost to, the beginning. (I promise I’ll do better on the next pattern!) Between the written out pattern and the diagram I think it will be pretty clear. I don’t know that it will be ready to post next week but I’m hoping it will be ready by the following week.

A few months ago I introduced Ryan, a Flying Minor Norwegian Dragon. Since then we’ve been trying to find the perfect home for her, and she’s been very picky. She couldn’t make up her mind about colors or design or anything. But finally, finally, she found something she likes, and would now like to show off her new home. Her landlord is very happy with her as well (I hope they get along). She was also working on her flame, trying for just the right color. We both thought this copper looked perfect.

I had no tea today and I miss that. I was in such a hurry to get out and do some errands I didn’t take the time to make even one cup of tea for Tatting Tea Tuesday. And I didn’t even realize it until I got to work and it dawned on me it was Tuesday. So today I’ll take time to tat during breaks and dream of tea – okay, probably not dream of tea, but I plan on drinking tea tomorrow.

“Heroes take journeys, confront dragons, and discover the treasure of their true selves” Carol Lynn Pearson

Something forgotten

I went to visit my daughter this week and even took my laptop so I when I had a few minutes I could work on the cross bookmark pattern. And guess what? I had saved the pattern to an external hard drive at home but not on the laptop. So no cross bookmark pattern. Oops.
Not that I had all that much time to work on it anyway. You know how it is when you get around family and two-year-olds, right? I did get a little time after his bedtime to tat a little, but not much, though I did finally get my bookmark for the Tatting Forum’s bookmark exchange mailed off.

Instead of working on the cross bookmark I got some work done on the heart bookmark. Okay, very little, but some 🙂 I’m trying the second design out, finding out if the drawing can be tatted the way it is or if changes have to be made. It’s interesting figuring out the best way to tat what was drawn, can it even be done, and in one pass or do you have to cut and start in a different place?

My first attempt at the second version. I see a few changes are in order.

I didn’t have tea this morning for Tatting Tea Tuesday but a cup of coffee instead, flavored with French Vanilla La Crème, which I tried for the first time at my daughter’s house. Mmmm, very good. I also tried the Cinnamon Vanilla La Crème, which is scrumptious, too. They have been added permanately to my grocery list ♥

“Funny, I don’t remember being absent minded.”

Doily with an Antique Motif

I mentioned last week that I have been working on a doily based on an old pattern. I’m finally done! There was a lot of mind changing and retro tatting due to mistakes as well, but finally, finally it’s done! I’m calling this #12 in my 25 Motif Challenge – I did make 13 of the medallions for it!
This doily is 8 x 8 inches (about 20 cm) made with DMC Cebelia size 30 in ecru. The large medallion is a pattern from Priscilla Tatting Book No. 1, copyright 1909. The way patterns were written back then makes it a lot harder for me to decipher than the way many patterns are written today, so at first I just used the picture as a pattern, then I read through the written text. And, yes, this pattern uses two shuttles (“For convenience’ sake call one shuttle A and the other B” page 5, Pris. Tatting Book No. 1). I didn’t follow it quite like it was written as I climbed out of the center by a picot and went on to the next round without a cut and tie and used size 30 thread instead of the specified size 50. As this medallion has long picots and I was going to be making quite a few of them I made myself a set of picot gauges from a plastic lid, which helped a lot after I got used to using them.

Another way I didn’t follow the pattern was not using the size 150 thread to go around each of the medallions. According to the pattern you should make all your medallions and go around each of them with the small thread, not joining them to each other yet. You then place them all on a piece of material in the order you want them, THEN you stitch them together. You also use ‘simple rings’ (which are the same as the center of the medallions) between the medallions, which you stitch in at this time, too. Okay, I wanted an old fashioned looking doily, but I didn’t really want to go to all this trouble. So I did it my way, joining them together as I went, and the simple rings became small medallions made of the center two rounds of the big medallion, just with slightly shorter picots, to fit in the spaces between medallions. The outside rounds of the doily were not part of the 1909 pattern at all, they are something I came up with. Both rounds were started and restarted several times. I’m still not real sure about them, but for the moment I’ll leave it like this. The question is, did I succeed in making an old fashioned looking doily?

It’s funny, I thought I did a pretty good job of blocking this – twice – but looking at the picture now I see where I didn’t do as good a job as I thought. I made this with the Cebelia thread because I have several balls of it as I used to tat with it a lot. After tatting with Lizbeth and Manuela threads this seems to be soft and fuzzy. I know that when I was retro tatting I had more trouble doing it without messing up the thread that I’ve become used to lately.

I was inspired to make an old fashioned-looking doily by the Ice Palace Bed and Breakfast that we stayed at while in Leadville, Co. According to the owner, the B & B was built using some of the lumber from the original Ice Palace, which was built in Leadville in 1895. The B & B is furnished with a lot of period pieces and I enjoyed the Victorian look of the whole house. On the way home I got to thinking about a doily that would fit into that decor. So when I got home I started looking through my vintage pattern books as well as on-line, including the Knots pattern page, which has a lot of vintage patterns. I chose the one I did for several reasons: 1) I liked the look (obviously) and 2) the picture was good enough that if I couldn’t figure out the written text I was pretty sure I could figure it out with just the picture. As I mentioned, I did a little of both. I actually have an idea for another doily using the same medallion. Except that I have a couple of other pieces that I need to do first, I’d already be working on it!

For today’s Tatting Tea Tuesday I displayed part of a miniature tea set I had as a little girl on the doily. I think it adds a little bit to the old-fashioned flavor of the doily. The shuttle is a wooden one from The Shuttle Shop my husband bought me. And to really set the mood, I’m enjoying a little mint tea with my tatting today, another old-fashioned flavor.

Thinking on the age of things, I looked back at my old posts and realized that I will have been blogging for two years in a couple of weeks, which got me thinking of having a giveaway. If anyone is interested please leave a comment on this post to be entered in the drawing. I’ll announce the winner on October 26th in my Tatting Tea Tuesday post.

Now on to newer things: I did finally get my homework done for the Design-Tat class and I’m working on a bookmark for The Tatting Forums bookmark-a-month challenge. That’s coming out a little different than planned (again!) but it has a nice fall look to it. I’m almost done and ran out of thread (!) and now have to add some, but it should be done soon.

I did say I would post the pattern for the previous bookmark/bracelet, so here it is. I’ve gone through it for errors but a few might still be lurking. (I’m so hoping that when I’m done with the Design-Tat class that I can diagram patterns!)

Vacation Bookmark/Bracelet Sept. 2010
p = picot += join RW = reverse work DNRW = do not reverse work
prev = previous CL = clover leaf
1 Shuttle and ball. If wanting chain color for center
ring of cloverleaf, 2 shuttles.
All picots on clover leaves are for joining only,
make as small as possible.
CL R 6-3-3. R 3+6-3-3-6-3. R 3+3-6. RW
*Ch 9-9. RW
CL R 6+ (to 2nd p of prev R)3-3.R 3+6-3-3-6-3.R 3+3-6. RW*
Repeat between * for desired length, then
Ch 9-12 RW
R 6+(to 2nd p of prev R) 6. R 6-6. RW
Ch 20 join to base of last two rings DNRW
Ch 12-9 RW
R 6+ (to p of prev R)3+(to 4th p of facing R) 3.
+ (to 3rd p of facing R. R 3+(to 2nd p of facing R)3-6.RW
*Ch 9-9. RW
R 6+ (to 2nd p of prev. R) 3+(to 4th p of facing R) 3.
+ (to 3rd p of facing R). R 3+(to 2nd p of facing R)3-6.RW*
Repeat between * for length, then
Ch 9-12 RW
R 6+(to 2nd p of prev R) 6. R 6+ (to 1st p of starting R)6. RW
Ch 20 join to base of prev two rings DNRW
Ch 12-9 Cut and tie, finish off the ends.
For bracelet:
Put the thread through the chain at one end before wrapping
it around your hand for a ring.
*R 15 ++ to toggle clasp 15. Cut and tie, finish off ends.*
Repeat for the other end.

Progress and Flowers

I didn’t find where I might have written down the pattern for the doily *sigh*. So I counted stitches and wrote it down. In pencil. And I’ve started making it in Lizbeth size 20 ‘Western Sunset’. It’s shades of red and purples. The second round I’m using red as the chain thread to see how that looks. I’m not sure yet if I’ll like it, but thought I’d try it. The ‘Western Sunset’ was already on a couple of shuttles so I could start right away after I had the pattern done. As there’s nothing fancy in this doily, just one shuttle and ball, it should go rather quickly. No promises about how fast it will get done but it would be nice to have finished by Tuesday :-).

The flowers in the picture are kind of a funny story. I had the idea of taking flowers to church on Sunday (Mother’s Day) and handing them out to all the ladies. We don’t have a large congregation so it wouldn’t be hard or expensive. There were a lot of choices at the store including these bright and cheery colored daisies. When I was getting in the car I realized that daisies really don’t smell all that wonderful, maybe carnations would have been a better choice? But each lady would get several flowers on a stem with the daisies and they were bright and cheery so it was still okay. I left the flowers bundled up but in water overnight. Sunday morning I took the rubber band and the plastic from around them and spread them out a bit so they would be easy to pull out of the vase. And noticed that my fingers were a bright and cheery blue! I was pretty sure none of the ladies at church would want blue dye stains on their clothes or hands. I ended up not taking the flowers to church. Carnations would have been better.

The daisies do look good on my table, though, in their bright and cheery blue water.

Baby booties are started

I finally have started on the baby booties for my grandsons. The plan is to baptize them at the same time and the girls and I thought it would be nice for me to make them booties.
I’m using the pattern out of Aunt Ellen’s Tatting Patterns by Workbasket. I’ve made this pattern before, about 16 -17 years ago. It’s kind of funny. The book marks each pattern by how hard it is, easy, intermediate and challenging and this pattern is challenging. No big deal, I’ve made them before. Uh-huh. I’ve learned a lot and done a lot since then.
So the pattern says shuttle and ball. Okay, I wind one shuttle and leave it attached to the ball and start the bottom, do about the first five rings and chains. And then I’m looking for the other shuttle – the one I didn’t wind because you only need one. But the way the pattern flows a second shuttle is needed, at least it is if you know how.
So, I wound thread around the outside of the shuttle until I thought I had enough, cut off from the ball and wound a second shuttle (I didn’t measure but an experienced eye had the shuttle loaded almost perfectly) and went on with the bottom.
The rest of it is pretty straight forward and is for just shuttle and ball. I have two more rounds on the first of bootie left to go. I’ll try it on the youngest grandson to see how it fits then make the next pair out of larger thread for the older. He’s two months older and had really long feet when he was born so I’ll have to experiment with different thread sizes to get them to fit. This one is in DMC white size 30 so I have size 20 and size 10 for a couple of easy ways to increase the size without changing the pattern.
We’re planning on mid-February for the event – weather permitting – so as long as I don’t dawdle too much I should get them done in plenty of time. That is, of course, if I don’t have trouble with the next pair!
I was planning on posting the Entwined Hearts, pattern by Jon, here and the booties when at least one pair was made, but I oopsed. I was actually taking a picture of it and noticed that I made a join wrong! So I decided to make it again before posting it. Stay tuned…

Motifs # 9 & #10

Yes, Christmas is over but the ‘snow’ is still here. These are two snowflakes I made before we took the tree down. The white one is, of course, Micheal’s snowflake,made with DMC size 10 with silver beads. The red one is one I designed a few weeks earlier, in DMC size 10. It’s a maroon color, not red, with white pearl beads. These are #9 & #10 motifs for the 25 motif challenge. If you look back through my blog I know the last motif was labeled as #6 but I went through all of it and found I mis-counted. There are eight previous motifs and now ten all together.

I have been working on a doily lately, but I’m not very happy with it. I’ve done several nice bits and pieces in it, but over all it’s not very pleasing to the eye, too haphazard from round to round. But it’s something to play with. I have printed off several patterns that have been mentioned recently on eTatters that I plan on making, but I haven’t decided on the thread I want to use with them. I might just have to get some new thread. Yeah, like the thread shopping is going to break my heart!

We are counting down the days to the next grandbaby. My oldest daughter is due in 14 days! She’s very ready for him to get here. He’s been very active, not letting her forget that he’s there. This daughter is in Wichita, much closer to us, so it will only take a little less than an hour to get there when she says it’s time. I keep a phone with me at all times! Another baby, oh boy, oh boy!!

Last round of Bob’s coily

I’ve been trying to get the house ready for guests on Christmas day so haven’t had much time to post much. But I wanted to get the pattern for the last round of Bob’s coily up so if you were interested you could try it.

So here it is. I’m the only one that has reviewed it so there may be a mistake hiding there somewhere. Tat with care.

2 shuttles
Sht1 R 3-3+3-3 to 3rd p of 2nd R of previous round. RW
Ch 10 RW
SR Sht1 5 Sht2 5
SR Sht1 5 Sht2 5
Flower
SR Sht1 5-3 Sht2 5-3 RW
Sht2 R 3+5-5-3 to p of prev R DNRW
Sht2 R 3+5-5-3 to p of prev R DNRW
Sht2 R 3+5-5-3 to p of prev R DNRW
SR Sht2 3+5 Sht1 3+5 to p of first R of flower
SR Sht2 5 Sht1 5
SR Sht2 5 Sht1 5 DNRW
Ch 10 RW
Repeat from start, continue around. Join last Ch to 1st R.

Bob’s coily becomes a doily!


Well, here it is, at last! I made another ‘coily‘ designed by Bob the Bike, except this time I think it definitely qualifies as a doily. First, I made this with Manuela size 10 white variegated thread, which made it noticeably bigger than the pink coily I made in Cebelia size 30. Then I added another round that I designed, hopefully in the spirit of the original. The end result is a doily about 8 1/2 inches across. I think it works. I did have to try a couple of times on the last round – the first try I didn’t make the chains long enough and it was cupping quite a bit. I am very much into right side/bottom side and I started with the single R right side up, which means that the flower had to be done from the bottom with two split rings – which I usually do front the right side. Ugh! If I didn’t pay very close attention I’d start the second half of the split ring with the wrong half of the ds. It took me longer to do the last round than I anticipated because of this. The picture doesn’t show the color of the thread very well. It is mostly white but shades to very light pink and then light blue. I hope Bob likes it! And I’m counting this as motif #6 for the motif challenge.

I have been busy the last few days, too busy to post anything here. I’ve been able to skim through several blogs and eTatters when I’ve had a few minutes here and there, so I’ve got to see what others have been doing. It keeps me motivated! And I have been reading the comments from everyone, even if I haven’t commented back! I really appreciate those of you that visit!

I’ve got most of the Christmas cards done – most of the ones that are left will be hand delivered. I haven’t wrapped a gift yet! Good thing we’re not doing many gift exchanges this year. We have several gatherings that we’re just visiting and eating. So I have to figure out what to make – easier than trying to figure out gifts for everyone! I think it will be a little more relaxed through the season that way, no frantic, last minute shopping. And then my daughter’s baby shower is the 27th. One more day of family and friends.

Of course, all the planned festivities may depend on the weather. We’ve had quite a bit of winter weather this year, and it seems to me we don’t usually have this much this early, here in Kansas at least. Tuesday morning we woke up to about 4 inches of snow. The roads weren’t too bad and the wind had died down – the weekend was windy!!. But it has been very cold since Sunday. Today wasn’t too bad but tonight we are supposed to get freezing drizzle and fog. The drive to work in he morning looks to be very s-l-o-w. (It might be a good day to call in sick!)

I have a few other things I plan on posting but I’ve run out of time. I’ll try to post again before the end of the week, but no promises! Happy Christmas, everyone!

P.S. I’ll try to get the pattern for the last round posted soon if anyone is interested.

Bookmark in fall colors

This is a bookmark I designed a few years ago when I was with one of my daughters at a sporting event. I posted this on eTatters and was asked if I would post the pattern.

Finally, here it is! Anyone is welcome to try it. It looks good in other colors, too.
Bookmark in fall colors
Designed by Wanda Salmans, aka tattrldy

Shuttle and ball
Motif
#
Clover
R 5-3-2. DNRW
R 2+ (to 2nd p of prev R) 3-3-2. DNRW
R 2+ (to 2nd p of prev R) 3-5. RW
Ch 5-5. RW
%
R 5+5 (to 2nd p of prev R) DNRW
R 5-5 RW
Ch 5-5 RW
%
Repeat between % twice.
Repeat Clover and following Ch, joining 1st p of 1st R of Clover to 2nd p of prev R
Repeat between % three times
Join to base of 1st Clover. Cut and Tie.
#
Repeat between # twice, joining to previous motifs in 2nd p of 2nd R of Clover.

Outside edge

R 5+5 to 2nd p of 2nd R of Clover at one end of the string of motifs. RW
Ch 3-2-2-3. RW
@
R 5+5 to next j of facing Rs of motif. RW
Ch 5-2-2-2-2-5. RW
@
Repeat between @ two times.
^
R 5+5 to next j of facing Rs of motif. RW
Ch 3 RW
R 5+5 to j of Clovers between motifs. RW
Ch 3 RW
^
Repeat between @ three times
Repeat between ^ once.
Repeat between @ three times.
R 5+5 to next j of facing Rs of motif. RW
Ch 3-2-2-3. RW
R 5+5 to 2nd p of 2nd R of Clover at end of the string of motifs. RW
$
Ch 3-2-2-2-2-2 each p increasing in length -2-2-2-3 each p decreasing in length. RW

Repeat from the beginning of Outside Edge with next R in same p as prev R.
Last Ch $ 22 ds, no picots.

Add tassel of 8 strands of thread doubled and brought through the $ chain from front to back. Bring all ends through loop and tighten. Trim ends as desired.
Update – added to My Patterns tab 1/6/15