I have finished the Pinwheel Snowflake pattern! At least the first two rows. I’ll get to the third row later.
I’ve added the pattern to My Patterns page to the left. This will be easier to get now.
Thank you to everyone that has shown interest in it.
Believe it or not, I have finished the pattern for the Victor Snowflake! Amazing, isn’t it? If you are interested, please leave a comment or email me for the pattern.
When test-tatting Victor I decided to use Lizbeth # 694 Bright Orange and # 698 Fudge Med in size 20, because it is fall and I felt like using fall colors. Using two colors helps define the pattern, which is helpful when writing it out.
I’ve been getting out the fall and Halloween decorations in the hopes of putting a bit up in the house. I usually decorate at work not so much the house, but this year is different. Now I have to decide what I’m putting where, and how much. It would look best if I clean up the house a bit first, so this may be limited. I think I’ll leave the spiderwebs until after Halloween, LOL.
One thing I have already hung up is the quilted ball ornament I received from Isdahara way back in 2009. She had a giveaway on her blog, Ambitatterous, and I won! The really fun part about the giveaway was that we actually met up for her to give me the prize.
Not only did she make this lovely quilted ball but she added tatting to make it extra special. The pumpkin on the front and back is ‘Tatted Pumpkin’, pattern by Sherry Matthews ©2004, and the edging is ‘Pumpkin Vine Edging’ pattern by Heidi Sunday. Isdahara doesn’t do much with her blog these days but she is the admin for the Facebook group Summer Snowflakes. Always fun snowflakes to see there if you’d like to check it out.
To enter Isdahara’s giveaway you had to make up a ‘fractured quote‘ about tea and tatting. Tatters came up with some good ones! Below are the two I came up with. Not saying they were good, but they were fun to make!
“Tea and tatting – Mmmmm, two of life’s exquisite pleasures that together bring near-bliss” tattrldy (mis-quoted from Christine Hanrahan)
Hey diddle duddle, the cat and the shuttle
Tatting all over the room
The little dog sipped on honey and tea
And wrapped all the knots on a spoon
tattrldy
I’ve been very busy this week with a lot of unplanned things going on. Mostly I’ve spent my days helping clean out the apartment of one of my aunts. By the time I got home every day I was too tired to do much else. I was able to work on the Vacation Snowflake 2020 pattern, though I didn’t finish it until this morning. But it’s done! If you would like it, please email me and I’ll send it to you.
Busy or not, I have been taking time every morning to go out to see the dawn. It is lovely that time of day, mostly quiet except for the sounds of birds and insects. For all that it is awful about the fires in the western states, all the smoke in the sky from them makes for beautiful sunrises.
September is time for the hummingbirds to start their migrations to the south. We’ve had at least five or six of them around our place this year. I only started putting out feeders last year, so I’m very excited to see them around. They start coming to the feeders before sunrise and before most of the other birds start getting around. Then they come back off and on all day. They are so fun to watch, they keep me distracted. My cheap entertainment LOL.
Down the road from us, there is a place called Kansas Maze. Some years they do a corn maze and a pumpkin patch. This year they are doing a Sunflower patch. They even have props and a raised platform to give you cute picture opportunities. They were supposed to have a Sunflower Market craft show a couple of weeks ago but we had so much rain the night before/morning of, they had to postpone until this last weekend. Unfortunately, it did cost them several vendors but they still had enough to make it a worthwhile trip. I had planned to go to it with my sister, but with the date change that didn’t work out so I went by myself. I’m glad I did.
This sunflower is from our yard. It’s much smaller than the sunflowers they are raising as a crop at Kansas Maze. We have quite a few, though nothing compared to the Maze.
Farmers around here are harvesting their corn right now. Between all the dust they are raising doing that and the smoke in the air, my allergies are giving me fits! Thank goodness for allergy mediation! The only problem with them is if I sit down very long I get sleepy. Good thing I haven’t had time to sit still very long. I have a long list of things to do, and that doesn’t count the tatting I have planned.
Has your summer been going as planned?
“Wherever life plants you, bloom with Grace.” Old French proverb
I’ve been working on the pattern for the August Split Ring Cross I recently made. I have the diagram done and the written part done, but I am having problems making up my mind on how to add the different pieces to the pattern. I’ve made a couple of detailed drawings/directions but am unsure just where to place them in the written pattern.
I’ve made a detail for the facing 3-ring sections and for the corner sections, then one large one for the overall cross. The overall diagram does not have the stitch count as the count is repeated over and over and I think the detail will show it more clearly. In the written pattern, do I start with the details on the front page and then the overall, or visa-versa? I keep changing my mind.
I also have a couple of pictures with details of how I did a few things. I’m thinking I’ll add those at the end, a separate page for these. I suppose I could put the detailed drawings on this page as well. Hmmm.
I’m saying the pattern is done for now but I might change it up later. If anyone wants the pattern, please email me. And let me know if you like the layout of the pattern.
I’m still working on the runner but it is a larger project which I only work on at home. If I have time this week to sit down and tat I’m hoping to get the tatting part done. Then it will be putting it all together, which also means sewing. I’d much rather tat. We’ll see how far I get with it in the next week.
“Saying ‘yes’ to one thing means saying ‘no’ to another. That’s why decisions can be hard sometimes.” Sean Covey
Can you believe it? After three weeks (?) I finally have the pattern finished. Yay!
I have never had this much trouble diagramming a pattern before. And then I realized, I’ve never diagrammed a doily before. I’ve done snowflakes, bookmarks, edgings, earrings, even an airplane, but never a doily. May I just say, it is a lot more complicated than all the others!
I started working on this, thinking it’s not that hard a pattern to tat, it shouldn’t take too long to diagram it. Was I wrong! I’ve made doilies before, just never written them out with a diagram. Not like this, anyway. Wow! I was ready to quit several times. I would think I had it, then things wouldn’t line up and I’d have to try again. It still isn’t that pretty, but I think it can be followed.
No-one except me has tried to follow this pattern, so there may be mistakes hiding in it. But I need to get on to Christmas tatting! I did say I would get this out, so here it is. If anyone would like to have it, please email me. And if you find mistakes, let me know so I can fix it! I’d love to hear from anyone who does make it.
“All things are difficult before they are easy.” Thomas Fuller
Back in 2009, I made a doily that I called ‘Arches Over Arches‘. I had originally thought to call it ‘Arches’, but Yarnplayer had recently made a doily of that name, so I had to come up with something else. I am not good at coming up with names for the items I design and make, so I just modified the name a bit. I made the same doily later that year but in different colors and called it a sunflower. Other people liked the doily and requested the pattern, but I never got to it. I was recently contacted by another person who requested the pattern, and I thought it was about time to put it together.
The problem is I didn’t write down dimensions or specifics for diagramming the pattern. So, I needed to make the doily again.
This time I’m using Lizbeth #181 Cranberry Bush in size 20. It was in a thread collection of Christmas threads and I hadn’t tried it yet. As I’m thinking about Christmas gifts now, it easily suggested itself to this doily. I like how this came out.
Once I got started this doily goes pretty quickly. The hardest part, for me, is the long chains. If I’m not careful, I lose count and have to recount to make sure all of the chains are the same length. Then of course, there is the tension on chains. Careful, careful!
I noticed after I uploaded the picture that the center doesn’t look quite round. I didn’t do a good job of blocking it, did I? The chains look pretty good. They have to be blocked or they are all over the place.
The center is right at two inches across, with a total diameter of just short of nine inches. I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to add a center as I did with the sunflower version. I think I’m going to write out the pattern this way first, maybe add the center later. I am working on the pattern now, looking for it to be done in a day or so. If you are interested in it, let me know.
As soon as the pattern is done, it’s on to Christmas tatting in a big way. I didn’t leave much time for that, did I?
I found a tatted snowflake in a drawer recently, made from a pattern that I came up with a few years ago, maybe from 2010 or 2011. This is one that I never wrote down (it is
So I made another one, this time with six arms. I also gave it a name, Snowflake – Adie.
This one is made in Lizbeth #328 Antique Gold (I think! It might be #300 Gold) and #316 Raspberry Pink. I love how it turned out!
The next one I made I switched up some of the stitch
I was asked about the pattern so thought it was time to write it out. I tatted the second one of these with it so I’m hoping I caught all (most?) of the mistakes. There are a couple of stitch count options mentioned
I was going to put it on My Patterns page but I found out that a lot of people are not able to download the patterns. This is because I’m getting too much traffic for the server where they are stored. For the moment, until I can figure out what to do about
I’ve been very pleased with the Lizbeth Metallics thread. My biggest problem has been threading a needle to sew the ends in. I found an embroidery threader which works wonderfully! I have several other colors of this thread that I’m looking forward to trying out, I just have to decide what to make with it. Maybe hearts?
“We are like a snowflake all different in our own beautiful way.” simplethoughtsquotes
‘Mandy’ Edging © Wanda Salmans 2015
I used to work a lot with DMC Cebelia thread because I could get it in quite a few colors and sizes, though I still had a tendency to work in only one color at a time or only in ecru. Recently I’ve been working almost exclusively in Lizbeth as there are so many colors and sizes available. I’m trying to use more colors in my projects, like the edgings I’m working on. I admire those of you that work in so many colors at the same time. The tat-a-long doilies like Renulek’s Wionsa 2015 that I’ve seen lately are good examples (Fox’s and Diane’s are great examples) of using lots of color.
I have added this pattern to my Patterns tab. I’m not exactly happy with how I diagrammed it but the way I usually do the count just wasn’t working with this pattern.
Now, on to the next edging. What color will it be?
“Your attitude is like a box of crayons that color your world. Constantly color your picture gray, and your picture will always be bleak. Try adding some bright colors to the picture by including humor, and your picture begins to lighten up.”
Allen Klein
www.brainyquote.com
