Dog & Sunflowers

A bit of crochet fun for this post.  These are the things I've been working on lately.  It was a nice change from tatting so many versions of Qanik!

Do you remember the Dachshund?  I helped a friend who wanted a Black Labrador version.  Here it is.

He's a bit hard to photograph as he's so dark!

And I've also made some sunflowers for my daughter.  They're coasters.  I know young people don't need/use coasters, do they?, but my daughter really likes sunflowers so I thought she'd like them for her room.

Best wishes,
Frivole

Qanik... and the generator says?

7, 13, 21, 11,  and 22.  That's the order in which the numbers came out and they are:  Sillystring, Joschaocchi, Jenn, Margaret and Bernice.  Please kindly send me your email using the link on the right column ("Contact Frivole") and I'll send you the pattern.

Added 20.11.17:  I decided to draw one more name as Joschaocchi (one of the winners) had been one of my testers so she already had the pattern.  Number 10 came up, that's Janemactats (pattern already sent!).

I really fiddled a lot with this pattern, making very small changes right up until today.  But that's it now.  I'm sending it out so this is the final version.

I must admit it's not that easy to get the long chains perfectly even.   It is so easy to pull them just a bit tighter or looser and they really need to be as much the same length as possible.  Still, even with a bit of unevenness, I hope you'll still enjoy how it looks and enjoy making it.    I also ended up adding picots in the very centre and I think that marries better with the look of the picots on the arms and between them.

Getting chains the same length is one reason why I like tatting them with unflipped stitches:  when I tat this way, I pull each stitch as I make it but I do not snug the chain at the end (like I do when I tat chains with normal, flipped stitches).  I find this makes my stitches, and my chains, more even.

During tatting, the points end up leaning a bit and I find this design and its long chains benefits from blocking to get it looking its best.

I've made so many samples of Qanik now that I have plenty to gift in my Christmas cards to friends and family.  I think I'm happy to move on to the next project.

Best wishes,

Frivole

Snowflakes

It's nice to re-visit patterns.  I've been making my way through my pattern book and hope to make some more.  I also spotted little amendments to make so will upload updated versions of patterns where necessary.

This is Céleste with "unarranged" picots

in silver thread and light teal and silver beads

I quite like that slightly messy look.

 Here it is again where I've played with the long picots a little bit

although I realised when I got to the end that I'd forgotten to make one!

Can you spot where?

This is Snowdrop

And lastly I made Twinkle Twinkle with pointy chains

to see how that would look

and I also made my latest snowflake with shorter arms

again, just to see!

Oh, and I got a name for it now!

I called it Qanik

It's the word for "falling snow" in Inuktitut

one of the Inuit languages

I think I will have a little draw... what do you think?

I will pick 5 names at random from comments to this post

to win a copy of Qanik.

... that's if you fancy making it of course!

Draw to be made very soon!

Are you guys busy making snowflakes too?  It's that time of year, isn't it.

Best wishes,

Frivole

Manly Socks?

Finished this pair of tomato red socks for a man in my family.  I hope the nice fine braiding is manly enough?  I wish I could have made the leg just a bit longer but I'd run out of wool and it didn't seem worth buying a whole other skein just for an inch or two on the leg.

I'm still enjoying knitting socks at the moment.

I have another pair on my needles already.

Best wishes,
Frivole

Beaded Twinkle and Updated Pattern

Two posts in one day!  But I wanted to let you know that I've now updated the pattern, still available from the same link.  It just shows how easy it is to make modifications and slightly change the look of a pattern with just a few stitches here and there.

Next I thought why not add a few beads...

And a last one in gold,

since it's a star

(real stars aren't gold though, are they?)

I added another stitch to the outer chains on that last one

so that there would be a bit more space around the beaded picots.

It now looks completely different from the original design...

still basically the same thing though!

I think I'll make a few more so I have extra to give away

when comes time to write my Christmas cards.

Best wishes,

Frivole

Twinkle Twinkle Re-visited

It's always good to go back and tat some of one's old patterns.  This one is a free one I wrote in 2013 (available in the "Patterns" section, tab above).

The smallest one on the left is tatted exactly as per the pattern.  I wasn't sure if I liked how the chains from the first round made nearly a circle around the centre ring.  I thought I'd prefer them to be a bit more pointy, like the outer chains...  So I added a few stitches... and then a couple more...

And now it looks like this:

What do you think?  Maybe I should just provide both versions on the pattern and people can choose?

Actually, looking at them again, the first original one looks a bit like those stars you trace in one go without lifting your pen, you know, where the lines cross in the middle?  I think adding those few stitches makes them look quite different.

Doing the ring at the tip as a SCMR gives that nice pointy shape to the chains.  If you were to make a normal thrown ring, the chain would be rounded.

This little star is very quick to make... I love sending people snowflakes in their Christmas cards... if you're short on time, you could make this one!  :-)

I'll try to update the pattern shortly.

Best wishes,

Frivole