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