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

Snowflake 2025 - Version 5

As per Angie K.'s suggestion, I tried to "square off" the shape between the tips so that it's more like the real snowflake.  

No. 5

Real Snowflake

I like it but... I now wonder whether it's better with the heavier look of the three chains (from version 2) so that it looks more like the real snowflake.  This is nice too but it feels very open in the centre now whereas the real snowflake is not open in the centre, it's full.  Maybe no. 2 but I square off the last chains more?

No. 2

Do I try to fill in the spaces?  Even fill in the centre rings so that there is a lot less negative space in the centre of the snowflake? 

I mean of course, the real snowflake is an inspiration so my lace snowflake doesn't need to be exactly the same... but I enjoy the challenge of getting as close as possible!  It's always an interesting exercise and I often discover new shapes I like along the way and end up with more than one pattern (like no. 3 for example which I like also but is different and not so much like the real thing).

No. 3
(I missed one ring on one tip!)

No. 5

Ok, off to try another version!  See you again soon.

Best wishes,

Frivole