Christmas Giveaway

Hello everyone, I hope your Christmas preparations are going well?  

My Christmas gift to you this year is a pair of earrings that I drew from my Snow Crystal tatting pattern and then laser-cut out of Perspex.  I think clear Perspex makes them look "icy" and realistic (apart from their size of course!).  They are hung from sterling silver ear wires.

I'm wearing a pair myself today as I'm typing this.  They are lovely, lightweight,

and perfect for this time of year!

 I hope you'll like them.

Please leave a comment to be entered in the draw,

which will take place next Sunday, the 16th of December.

Please only leave one comment and I'll not publish any answers myself

so as to make counting easier!

(but thank you in advance for all your comments)

I'm afraid this may mean whoever wins

might not receive the earrings in time for Christmas

but I just didn't manage to get organised any earlier.

See it as a New Year gift.  :-)

I've enjoyed working at making drawings of my tatting patterns and as you can see below, just small changes from the same pattern create quite different looks.  All four designs below are based on my Snow Crystal design but I just slightly changed the way I drew them or added an extra element here and there.

The white one is also clear Perspex but I have not yet removed the protective sheet.

Makes me think they'd look nice in white too though...

So that's it for this blogpost, back to studies for me for another week.  Good luck for the draw if you're entering it!

Best wishes,

Frivole

Twinkle Cabochon Variations

I was recently shown an "ice drop" version of my Twinkle Twinkle pattern that a lady made in the "Ice Drop Addicts" Facebook group.  It looked really pretty.

I think she had used a 12mm cabochon for hers but I did not have any that size so I went with what I had, and tried it with a 20mm flatback rhinestone cabochon.

I think my centre is a bit too big but it set me off trying variations on that theme.

I have played with cabochons before (see this post) but realise now I think I forgot to take notes!  Silly me.  I can't remember my stitch counts so will have to try to examine my photos closely to figure it out.

Anyway, this time around again I was keen to see more of the cabochons so I went with my smaller-rings-longer-picots style for the front side.

Here is a very quick pattern for them if you are interested:

I make both sets of rings at the same time in the first round.  I was working on a video of this pattern yesterday but sadly it didn't work out very well and I'm having to re-film it.  But I hope to have one uploaded very soon.

First Round:

R3--3--3 (picots made with a 8mm gauge), dnrw and with same shuttle R8-2-8 (very small picots)

Fold two rings back to back and tat C4-1--1-4 (graduated picots), rw

R3+3--3  (second picot made with 8mm gauge)

With the other shuttle R8+2-8, rw

C4-1--1-4...

Continue like this all the way around, not forgetting to join the last rings on both sides.  The last ring on the back is a bit fiddly to accomplish but it's do-able!  :-)

Join back at the beginning.  Dnrw.

Second Round:

C5-2-2-2, SCMR3-1--1-3, carry on with C2-2-2-5, join at base of small ring.

Repeat all around.  Cut tie, hide ends (or use magic loops, inserting them in the first and last chains of the second round).

If you prefer not to use a SCMR, you can use a regular thrown ring instead but the points will be rounded.  Here is what the motif looks like with thrown rings:

I can't believe it's December already!  

... keep an eye out, I'm thinking of doing a Christmas giveaway very soon.

Best wishes,

Frivole

Silk Screen Printing Tatting

Still continuing on my theme of using tatting in as many ways as possible...  I screen printed a tatting design.  I drew another of my snowflakes - Snowdrop - and added it to the other two designs I'd already drawn to make a composition of snowflakes.

This is the screen after washing.  Just needs to be dried and it will be ready for printing.

I love the "ghosted" images you get on silk screens which get re-used

over and over again.  The marks of previous designs remain on the screen

and combine with the new images to make interesting compositions.

My first test.

Needs improving.

Some of the smaller snowflakes are too small

and get clogged up with ink and the details are lost.

The following week I returned to screen printing with another, bigger design.  I made the snowflakes larger and added more of the really simple little flakes in between the tatted ones.  

When washing my screen in between colour runs, I was struck by this image, where you can see the ink on the surface of the screen and the colour streaking down...

I printed a few things...

but this one is my favourite!

I'm happy with the mix of colours

(two different shades of blue)

and I like the pale on dark look.

I'm hoping to print a few more!

Best wishes,

Frivole

Box with Tatting?

Here is yet another way I have used tatting recently.  This is an unfinished project at the moment but I laser-cut four pieces of wood with snow crystals.  I didn't know whether I was going to make some sort of light box or ?...  So there is no bottom to this piece yet, just four sides.

I'm enjoying finding as many ways as possible to incorporate tatted lace into my projects!

Best wishes,

Frivole

Vitrified Tatting?

Here is another experiment I tried with tatting:  incorporating elements (not into glass as the title of this blogpost suggests but) into resin.  However, I say "vitrified tatting" because I think that's what it looks like.

The little bowls are a bit rough as I have not had time to sand and polish them yet.  But this first one has a rather appealing "frosted" look.

The snowflake I used was one of the samples I made when designing Crystal Star.  At the time, I wanted to be able to offer a version of this pattern that doesn't require beads.  It didn't make it to a final version but I rather like the multiple chains in the centre and may re-visit this design at some point.

To make it, I first cast a silicone mould of a bowl.  The bowl was my first attempt at "throwing" on the wheel so it wasn't the prettiest or neatest of bowls!  But anyway that's what I used for my mould.  The bowl was unglazed so had a matte, slightly rough finish which is why the resin also looks more matte and you can see the lines of the original bowl in my resin bowl.

Silicone being poured over bowl to make mould:

Bowl removed from the set silicone mould:

Lace snowflake laid into mould ready for resin pouring:

I hadn't mixed enough resin so I ended up pouring twice with a little bit more blue the second time which gave that slightly graduated colouring which I like.  You can see how rough the bottom of my bowl is at the moment.  Needs more work!

The second bowl I cast from a commercial, glazed bowl so the resin from that mould came out shinier and smoother... except for the fact that I had bubbles in my silicone mould!  But that's another story.  It just means the exterior of my resin bowl is rough and the bubbles from the silicone stand out on the surface.  It needs sanding and polishing.  I've also found that it's incredibly difficult to pour resin without causing some bubbling to occur and you can definitely see them in this second bowl.

I used clear resin this time:

The second tatting design is one of Robin Perfetti's called "Kaleidoscope".

So that's the resin bowl experiment.  I do like how the tatting becomes part of the bowl, like it's floating inside and I will definitely make more items if I get the chance.


Best wishes,
Frivole

Snow Crystals

I don't have time to tat at the moment but as you can see, I'm still thinking of tatting.  Here is the design from the last post which I cut on the laser cutter.  I'm fond of this small design which was based on a real snowflake image.

Here's the real snowflake:

Here is Snow Crystal:

 And here's the Illustrator-drawn multiple version which I sent to the cutter:

As you may have noticed, I was keen to keep the slightly 'bobbly' edge that you get with the double stitch, so rather than drawing smooth lines, I added dots on the edge of the lines to better emulate the look of tatting, even though this meant it took longer to cut!

And here they are, cut out of plywood and out of acrylic,

before I finished peeling off the backing from the acrylic,

and also before I finished popping out all the little pieces.

And one more photo once I'd removed all the protective backing on both sides.

All icy, shiny, and sparkly!

I do like them.

Best wishes,

Frivole

Acrylic & Velvet Qanik

As mentioned in the previous post, here are two versions of Qanik cut out of acrylic.  They look like they're made of ice, don't you think?

I did find that it takes nearly twice as long to cut the designs out of acrylic as it does out of wood.  The laser cutter has to go slower so that the plastic doesn't fuse back onto itself.  Also, the little pieces needed a lot more prizing out whereas with the wood, they just fell right out.

The last thing I tried in that first laser-cutting session was "engraving" Qanik on velvet.  This wasn't completely successful.  I only had time to cut the outline and the effect wasn't quite what I was looking for but I hope to get a chance to try again with different settings and with "engraving" the whole snowflake next time.

I've also drawn a smaller snowflake for the next session.

This is one of the ones I designed, inspired by a real snowflake.

I look forward to seeing it laser-cut.

Best wishes,

Frivole