Sunday 17 September 2017

A Bit More Giant Tatting, Needle Lace, and Gifts from the Garden

I had another go with a different yarn.  The blue one from the previous post was a cotton yarn where the strands were quite loose and it was easy to catch the strands with the hook when trying to close the rings.  This time I used a thick wool yarn in aran weight and a 5mm crochet hook and it was much easier to work.


You can't see in the photo but I actually drilled a hole in the bottom of my hook (pictured in photo) so that I could use it like a tatting needle and thread my yarn through it at the bottom.  I tried like that and I tried the cro-tatting way but I preferred the look at the bottom of the rings when made the cro-tatting way and then there is also the great advantage of working from the ball too.  Except I've not yet figured out how to make "tatted" chains that way so the chains are actually crocheted.  You can see how large this tatting is compared with the tatted leaf in the middle which is made in size 20 thread.

Anyway, I don't know if I'm going anywhere with this.  Perhaps that's it for now and it was just interesting to try very large tatting.  I think it could be interesting to tat a shawl or something like that but I'd have to practice some more to get more even rings because at the moment, it's not satisfactory to me!

Then I saw a video on YouTube that caught my eye and I had to give something new a try.  It's a bit of needle lace...

The bottom motif is my first attempt (rather wonky!) and the green one is my second attempt (already much better).  It was interesting to make and it looks pretty.  Some of the edgings I've seen done with this technique are really lovely.



And lastly, just a photo from my garden.  We had a go at growing a few vegetables this summer with very mixed results.  Tomatoes and green beans were a bit of a disaster but this weekend we dug up some potatoes and beetroot which are very nice, a few stunted ears of corn (not a huge success) and we also collected the remainder of the apples from our trees (we have two).  The photo shows some of what we collected and I just thought the fruit and veg looked appealing in the sunshine...



Best wishes,
Frivole

12 comments:

  1. Your cross-tatting piece looks very nice. Your needle lace looks similar to the technique I learned from Wally Sosa at Palmetto Tat Days. Do you have a link to the YouTube video? I'd be interested to see if they truly are similar. Our garden has been a bit iffy this year. We haven't had many tomatoes, but they ones we have had were very good. Our beets aren't ready yet, but our potatoes have started coming in. There's nothing like vegetable fresh from the garden!

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    1. Hi Diane,
      Yes, here is the link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIys7SRI33E
      I agree with you on vegetables from the garden, it's really lovely to eat stuff you've grown. But we've not been very successful... we'll have to try again next year. :-)

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  2. The beets are gorgeous! I once tatted a cross out of yarn, about 2 ft in length as a wall hanging. My mother still has it but I don't think I'll do that again, sore, sore hands.

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    1. Yes, and delicious too! They did well the beets, I'll definitely plant more next year. A cross two feet in length? I'd love to see it if you have a photo!

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  3. Das Tatting ist sehr schön. Ich habe auf einer Occhi-Ausstellung eine Mütze aus ganz Occhi gesehen. Material war Wolle. Gefiehl mir sehr gut. Die Mütze war ganz in Occhi geteilte Ringe und große Piccot gemacht.

    Eine sehr schöne Gartenernte. Frisches Gemüse aus dem Garten schmeckt am Bestem.

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  4. Really great giant tatting!!! :)
    Love your needle lace project!!! :)
    Looks like a pretty good harvest!! :)

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  5. Armenian Lace, perhaps?

    Your veggies look amazing!

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    1. Yes you maybe right, the tutorial just calls it "needlelace" but it looks like Armenian lace.

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  6. Interesting experiments with the large 'yarn' but it seems that crochet and knitting are more suited to garments, although I did see a nice tatted vest made of size 10 thread.

    Totus Mel (needle tatter - whose blog is here http://totusmel.blogspot.com/ ) has taught herself Armenian lace rather quickly, and is now working on a huge tablecloth. You can see it in her Aug. 29, 2017 post. It's too tedious for me! She has also made some videos so I wondered if the video was hers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QazKmtnjQA

    I also wondered if you have read articles about Althea Chrome, who knit teeny sweaters for an animated movie. Here is a video about her https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VT5MFdAB7fI


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    1. I agree with you Kathy, knitting and crochet are much better for garments, I just wanted to try it for a bit of fun!

      Yes, I've seen Pamela's Armenian lace but the video was not hers. I added the link of the one I used below Michelle's comment.

      I'll look up Althea Chrome! Thank you. :-)

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    2. Just had a look at the video! The minuscule sweaters are amazing! :-)

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  7. Sorry this is a late comment, not been well since I came back from holiday
    Interesting post, I like your large tatting and your cro tatting.
    Some veg have not had a good year, at least you tried next year you could have a bunper crop

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