Evolution of a Snowflake Design

It's that time of year! Time for a new snowflake. I leafed through my favourite book of snowflakes by Wilson A. Bentley and picked one:

Normally, I make little pencil sketches to start with but this time I went straight in with my shuttles and had a go at reproducing the shape:

Version 1:  Straight off the shuttles, using lock chains to get the straight lines of the real snowflake. I find tips too long proportionally. Need to figure out how to move from round to round in a pleasing manner. An OK start.

Version 2:  Spaced it a bit more, straight lines of LCs are ok but lack interest. Added a round of normal chains to vary things and because I see a bit of a curve effect in the real one too.

Version 3:  I'm keeping the round of normal chains and added a line of SRs (split rings) for interest. Yes, that's a bit better but still not quite right… continuing to work on tips for proportion and how to join them to last round. Still figuring out the best way to move from round to round, now using tiny rings to space the rounds.

Version 4:  Thought it was better to end with a straight line of LCs (more like real snowflake) so put SRs on penultimate round, not bad, I think I like this one. 

Version 5:  Basically re-did 4 thinking perhaps it was good but now I’m not so sure about the spacing and find the tips are sticking out too much. Tips still feel a bit too long proportionally, maybe I need to attach them to the last round... on the real snowflake, they are really "stuck" onto the outer edge.

Version 6:  SRs are a bit fiddly to make so let’s try victorian sets for the penultimate round instead. Hmmm, no, lacks the visual interest of the SRs. However, I attached the trefoils to the LCs on that one, adding a couple of plain DS at beginning and end of LCs and I prefer that.

Version 7:  YES. I’m happy now. I made the SRs a bit bigger and I prefer that. And I like the shape! It can be difficult to make long straight lines look really symmetrical and even but I think the proportions are good and in keeping with the look of the real snowflake.

I'm calling it... Flindrikin!

Flindrikin

Real Snowflake

Obviously I'm not trying to be "exactly" like the real snowflake, but strongly inspired, within the limitations of tatted lace, and hoping to create a pleasing design.

Oh, and Alwyn (snowflake 2025) is now available in my Etsy shop should anyone wish to tat it. Only a year late with it! So there will be two new ones this year.

Would anyone wish to test-tat Flindrikin? I'd appreciate it very much. Other people always see things I have not noticed when I write up the pattern.

Best wishes,

Frivole

The Forgotten Snowflake!

Really, I had completely forgotten about Alwyn... the snowflake I designed last year, which even got test-tatted by some helpful tatters but then I ran out of time to publish it before Christmas... so I forgot about it and never finished writing the pattern! 

I decided to add a variation as I did like another version I'd made (unintentionally, by forgetting one of the elements in one of my test pieces). They're similar but quite different at the same time I think. And I like both so decided to include both in the pattern. The one on the left is definitely closer to the real snowflake photo though.

I'm nearly there but now need to tackle the dreaded diagram drawing. I'm using Procreate but it's still a learning curve for me and a slow process.

Once I've got that one sorted out, I already have my Wilson Bentley book of snowflakes out to choose one for this year's new snowflake!

Best wishes,

Frivole

Crochet Like Knitting... or Knitting-Like Crochet?

I've always liked the idea of crocheting garments... but the resulting fabric is often a bit stiff and lacking in drape (or else you need to use a fine yarn to large hook ratio, so yes, there are workarounds but still...) compared to knitting.

Then I started seeing all these new garments crocheted through the back loop only and works sideways so of course I had to give it a try!

This is the Doña Sweater by Lolacrochets. I liked the simple shape and bulky but soft stitch. Crocheted with a 6.5mm hook, I figured it would grow reasonably quickly. I'm using Drops Nepal which is a lovely soft mix of wool and alpaca. I'd bought the yarn for a different project (not for me) so this is not really in my usual sort of colours but I decided to use it anyway (in case I don't like it in the end, I've not invested too much).

The other great thing about it is that is worked in one single piece! I'm still only on the first panel but I like it so far!

Best wishes,

Frivole

Vintage Edging

Here is an edging by Thérèse de Dillmont (she's the editor, not the designer) which you can find here in the Antique Patterns Library - what a wonderful resource! This is a pattern I've made before in years past but decided to re-visit and take the opportunity to make a video.

The left photo is from the original book and the green edging is my own tatting.

I shall be edging a new handkerchief for my mother-in-law. Sorry the lighting is a bit terrible in the photo below but that's the start of the edging which matches the green in the hanky. My mother-in-law loves green, it's her favourite colour!

It's not difficult and pretty... but you have to not mind making lots and lots of Josephine Knots!  I'll keep that one in my bag and get it done gradually.

Best wishes,

Frivole

Matching Earrings

One of the joys of making your own earrings is that you can always make them to match whichever outfit. Here is one pair I recently made to go with a particular dress. Apart from the striped black and white background, the yellow roses have a bit of blue in them and that's what I wanted to pick up. 

I feel it's really time I try to come up with a new earring design. I've been making this one for some time now (and still enjoy it, and have modified it a bit over the years) but I need to apply my brain cells to something new! Sometimes inspiration strikes unexpectedly... other times, you have to work at it!

I hope everyone is enjoying a pleasant summer!

Best wishes,

Frivole

More Earrings!

Since the last fair was a success, I made more earrings for the next Festival my daughter will be attending. Again I stuck to flowers, leaves, and nature, to be in keeping with the nature theme of her own art. I also used her preferred colour palette in choosing which threads to work with. I finally got around to making earrings with my leaf pattern and I also made my little pea pod into earrings!

I also played around with my layered flower pattern, modified it a bit and added beads on some of them. I do like the leaves, particularly in the darker variegated colour way (bottom right of photo above). I'll have to make myself a pair!

The beads are a bit subtle in this pair above

but I forgot to take close up photos of all the ones I sent to my daughter!

I've since made more beaded pairs which I'll have to show you in another blogpost.

Let's hope this selection will appeal to the Festival goers!

Best wishes,

Frivole

Busy with Earrings

Oh dear, I'm not making time to post on my blog again! There are always so many things to get on with aren't there? But I really needed to update a bit since my last post was about Easter eggs!

Over the long May Bank Holiday weekend, I was busy tatting some earrings for my daughter to take with her to a craft fair she will be attending.

She wanted something fairly simple and "leafy" if possible as my daughter's theme is nature so when she saw Lilliantatlace's Verdalet she thought it was just the thing! I like the shape of it and it's pretty quick to make. I tatted a few pairs of those and then some flowers which are my own design as well as the pair of little apples which are also my own. My daughter chose the colours to keep with her nature theme.

I was planning on make some earrings with my little leaf pattern too but I ran out of time. My daughter has another fair coming up in a couple of weeks so I'll be working on some of my own leaves for earrings next time.

It's been so unseasonably hot in the UK these last few days! Like full summer but in May! I hope you're all doing well from wherever you are reading this. It's always great to hear from you!

Best wishes,

Frivole

Pysanky Eggs - Happy Easter!

I recently discovered the joys of making Pysanky eggs (wax-resist dyed eggs) and have been having fun making several (once you start, you can't stop!).

I made my very first YouTube short showing the process if you're interested.

Egg Video

Egg with two colours (there's a layer of yellow you cannot see) and wax still on
(sorry, ugly paper towels covered in sooty wax!)

The result of the egg from above photo.

Another egg completed but wax not removed yet.

Same for that one.
... See if you can identify which these two above are in the box below! 

Who wants half a dozen eggs?

Two of my favourites... but I've already made more since!

Had you seen this type of egg decoration before? Do you like to decorate eggs for Easter? They looked great covered in tatting too of course and I've been meaning to design some tatted eggs for ages! But I failed again this year... I was too absorbed by making Pysanky eggs.

Happy Easter Everyone!

Best wishes,

Frivole

Utilitarian Crochet

This is probably not very exciting but I'm sharing it anyway. I recently completed this crochet bath mat! Exciting isn't it? When making dishcloths (I have lots of them and like using them in the kitchen) I created, by accident, a stitch I didn't know. I thought I was following a pattern but made a mistake and it created a totally different looking stitch which I really like the look of. It probably already exists somewhere no doubt but it was new to me.

The bath mat is crocheted in natural, undyed craft cotton.

I really like the texture of the stitch.

If anyone's interested, here's the stitch:

I called it my "Pop Stitch" as it makes me think of popcorn!
(number of stitches divisible by two):

Start in 2nd stitch from hook,
1 sc, 1 pop in same stitch 
Skip 1 stitch and repeat
End with 1 sc in last st. ch1, turn
Repeat. 

Pop stitch is:  yo, through hole, yo, back through hole, yo, pull through two loops, yo, through same hole, yo, back through hole, yo, pull through all four loops.

That's it for this time, I hope the spring sun is shining on you as it is here today. Lots of pretty spring flowers popping out in my garden, it makes me feel cheerful!

Best wishes,

Frivole

Edda's Heart One Last Time - and UP and DOWN Joins

As I'd said in the previous post, I needed to adjust - just a tiny bit! - the top part of Edda's heart for it to work with the way I tat. Adding just one stitch in those top chains did the trick for me. Otherwise it wasn't lying flat.

Tatted FS/BS, using up joins

I said in the previous post that I like the simplicity of this heart and I find it perfect in its shape... the funny thing is though that I seem to make a mistake (or more than one) every time I make it! The stitch count is 4 nearly everywhere but two of the top rings on each side have an extra stitch and I really often forget to make those!

Here's the previous version where I forgot to add that one extra stitch on the rings on the right top curve and everything is all bunched up! I finished it anyway but it's for the bin!

Tatted FS/BS, using down joins.

This heart still remains one of my favourites, particularly if you want a quick project for a card, it's a fast make.

I tatted both these hearts FS\BS but for the dark one I used down joins (pulling the thread down through the picot) whereas in the paler version, I used up joins (pulling the thread up through the picot). If you have a moment to examine the two hearts, can you tell me if you think it makes enough of a difference to warrant the extra effort (granted it's not a very big extra effort!). I do find up joins are easier and quicker to make so tend to always (nearly always) use them. What do you think? Do you change your joins depending on which side of your tatting you are working on?

Also I still hope I have the correct definition for the joins... 

Up Join: you go down through the picot with your hook and pull the thread UP through it

Down Join: you go up through the picot from behind and pull the thread DOWN through it

I think it's confusing because it depends if you're thinking about your hook going through the picot or the thread!

Anyway, that's how I've used the definition and how I've described it in this video so I hope you agree but if not, please tell me!

Best wishes,

Frivole

Hearts Re-visited - Happy Valentine's Day

Only just in time, I meant to post about hearts before Valentine's Day but we're here already!

I had not made my own heart pattern - The Heart Within - for a long time. I'm not completely happy with it to be honest and I'd like to see how I could change it... or create a new heart pattern I'd like even better. For this one, I decided to remove the little flower in the centre and just make a 1SSCMR to get a point so that the heart shape in the middle would be even more obvious. Maybe I like that better? I don't like the way the last two split rings on each side of the bottom ring don't quite face the right way with the others. Maybe I need to make the bottom chains of the inside heart a bit longer to push the tip down further? It's probably hard to understand what I'm describing but maybe you'll know what I mean.

The Heart Within

The second heart I tatted is one of my favourites: it's by Edda Guastalla.

I have made it a couple of times in the past and really like its shape.

Simple and perfect. Perfectly simple.

For me though, it does not lie flat at the top of the heart when I tat it as per the pattern. I seem to remember I had changed the stitch count a tiny bit to make it work better for me.. I think I just need to add an extra stitch on the chains of the curve at the top. I'll have to make it again and see if that works.

Have you been tatting hearts for Valentine's Day? Do you have a favourite pattern?

Best wishes,

Frivole

Frida Kahlo Blanket Completed!

I'm a bit late posting this as I finished the blanket 2-3 weeks ago. Can't believe I finally completed it after leaving it untouched for so long. After re-doing the wrongly crocheted 5-sided instead of 6-sided motif, I joined everything together, hid all the remaining ends and crocheted the border.

And below are a few close-ups of the different flowers in the blanket:

All the photos above show the crocheted border as per the pattern but I felt it was a little narrow for my taste and decided to add a little bit. So below is photo of the border after the few extra rows.

One down, one more to go! But I need to give my right elbow a little rest after all that crocheting! The blanket now lives in our living room and is perfect for those still cold February evenings.

Best wishes,

Frivole

New Year - 2026 here we are! And Frida Kahlo Blanket

Hello everyone, I hope your holidays were thoroughly enjoyable and I wish you all a fantastic 2026! 

I'm starting off the year not with tatting, but with crochet. On my search in our loft for something else, I found this blanket which I had started back in 2016 and which had been languishing since then after an initial burst of work on it, nearly 10 years ago! This is a blanket designed by Janie Crow and inspired by Frida Kahlo and her art. It's a bit mad with all its colours and bright flowers!

I laid it out on our carpet and this is where I'd left it: most of the completed medallions were already sewn together, the half-medallions for the edge were all made but not sewn on, there were two part-medallions started and 9 medallions still left to make (as well as the edging once it's all put together). Some of the flowers are a bit crumpled from having been stuck in a bag for so many years!

I started with completing the medallions with the big pink flowers in the centre:

Then I sewed all the half-medallions on the two long edges and finally started work on the five last medallions, one for the centre and two for each end of the blanket:

I was all excited to start working on the border when I realised.... that I'd done one of the medallions wrong (see bottom of photo below)! I managed to make it with five points instead of six! So had to take it apart and now need to make a new one and sew it in before I can carry on with the border.

All the flowers will look much better once I've finished and washed and blocked it (many flowers have their petals curled in at the moment). 

Anyway, I hope to come back soon to show you the finished blanket. I don't know if I don't think it's a bit too mad but I'd gone so far with it, I felt it deserved to be completed.

How have you started your year? What projects are you working on at the moment?

Best wishes,

Frivole

Oh, and amazingly, I'm embarrassed to say that I found a second part-completed blanket in my loft too! I hope I'm not the only one who has WIPs hiding in corners of her home...

Second blanket appearing in another blogpost soon.

Embroidered Felt Ornaments

Well, it seems I have failed to get my new snowflake pattern ready in time! I have a draft version ready but not a properly complete pattern yet. Would anyone like to test it in its current form?  It's version 5 from this blogpost that I wrote up in the end, or so far should I say as I might write up other versions as well.

In the meantime, my daughters came to visit last week and we had a craft day and embroidered felt ornaments.  I found an online shop that sells 100% wool felt which is very nice to work with (and I like that it's natural fibres). I enjoy making a beaded blanket stitch around the edges, it makes the ornaments sparkle when on the tree.

So here are some of the ornaments we made:

Mushrooms are popular in our family!

We have several other mushroom ornaments on our tree.

I hope all your Christmas preparations are going well and that you are able to also relax and enjoy this festive season.  I'm off to write more cards!

Best wishes,

Frivole

Vintage Edging - Handkerchief Completed

I've been side-tracked by various things and the snowflake design was put on the back burner for a couple of weeks (but I'm getting there with pattern writing!).  In the meantime, I managed to finish and attach the vintage edging (from this post) to a handkerchief which will be a present for mother-in-law for Christmas.

Here it is:

I used a simple whip stitch to attach the edging.

I do very much enjoy tatting a one-shuttle edging and this one is really pretty I think.  I made a video on how to make it and the pattern is written in the information box below the video, should anyone reading this fancy making it!

Best wishes,

Frivole

Snowflake 2025 - Versions 6 and 7

First of all, thank you so much for all your contributions in the comments, I really appreciate reading them!

I hope you're not fed up with this yet as I carry on trying to improve the design. On the last post, I pondered whether the centre should be more filled in (more like the real snowflake) so in these next two versions, that's what I changed.  The tips have remained the same nearly from the beginning.

Earlier on I made a transparent image from my tatted snowflake and superimposed it onto the real snowflake to see if the general shape and that of the tips fitted well with the real thing and was satisfied that it was close enough.

Transparent version 5 of snowflake, checking for shape

So in the next version, I attempted a more filled in centre:

Version 6

I was trying to make onion rings but they are not lying very well, it's a bit tight trying to fit everything into the centre space. I made three more chains after the centre onion rings. It's a bit messy and I don't like the centre negative space.

The real snowflake has a tiny ring in the centre so I tried that in the next version and I thought that would also help anchor the centre rings around it. Instead of making onion rings, I made small rings attached to the very centre one and then chains around them.  I think that worked out better.

Version 7

As per Frankie's suggestion, I made a collage of all the versions so far with the photo of the real snowflake top left.

To recapitulate:  Version 1: does not count, it was my first "tat-through" and I kept changing things as I tatted it. Version 2: I made more space for the tips (they were too close together on Version 1), added a gap between the centre rings and the chains and made three rows of chains.  Version 3: is a mistake!  I missed an element but decided to keep tatting and finish it anyway.  Version 4: I removed a round of chains as I was not sure I liked the heaviness of the three rounds of Version 2, but I think it makes the centre a bit too angular and star-like. Version 5: I square off the chains so that the line between the tips was straighter (more like the real snowflake) but this makes it very open whereas the real snowflake is full in the centre. Version 6: I filled in the centre with onion rings and three rounds of chains but it was not lying nicely so I then tried Version 7 with a tiny centre ring as the starting point around which I attached rounds of rings and chains.

Phew! Are you still with me?  

Do I stop here or are there more versions I should try? I pondered Angie's suggestion to tat it as pie wedges but it seemed quite complex to come up with a path that would work. The other problem is that in my bid to re-create real snowflakes, sometimes patterns becomes complex and perhaps less do-able for beginners.  All versions have SCMRs and a split ring to climb from round one to round two and some also have a split chain so that it can be tatted in one pass.  Is that something you'd be happy to tat or does it require too many "advanced" techniques?  I sometimes try to come up with a simpler version of some of my designs too (which may mean tatting it in more than one pass to avoid split rings and chains if you're not comfortable with those).

Am I happy enough with Version 7?  Thinking about it...  Might try adding a picot there (red arrow in image below) to fill in that space and to give the centre ring a slightly more pointy shape. Or maybe not...  Decisions, decisions!

I look forward to your comments!

Best wishes,

Frivole