Light Bulb Moment, Lock Joins, and Catherine Wheel Joins

A lady recently asked me a question on one of my YouTube videos.  It's the one that shows how to make a blipless join when working with two colours.  She wanted to know how to avoid a colour blip when making a lock join instead of a regular join.

Of course as only one shuttle is used for the lock join, you cannot use the other shuttle/colour to hide the colour blip as I do in my blipless join.  This needed to be explored... but the solution was simple in the end:  using a Catherine Wheel Join solves the problem.  If you look at the photo below, you can see that the CWJ is much neater looking as well as keeping the chain colour continuous.

One thing to take into consideration however is that the CWJ adds a stitch, whereas a lock join does not.

The problem with a CWJ though is that it doesn't "dip down" on the join like a lock join does.  You can see in the photo above how much sharper the angle is on the lock join than it is on the CWJ.  I found a solution:  I make the last half stitch before the CWJ and the first half stitch after it with a double wrap which makes the base of the stitch larger and thereby giving a better shape to the join area.

But that wasn't even the light-bulb moment yet!  I don't know about you but I was finding CWJs not that easy to do.  I often use to mess them up and had to take them apart and start again.  It may just be me, please let me know if you find them easy.  Anyway, whilst working these CWJs this morning, I just realised they are just the same as the stitches in a video I made recently on split chains.  That was the light-bulb moment!

I really like this way of making split chains which was shown to me by Marie Smith (see video).  Before learning that method, I disliked tatting split chains and tended to avoid them even though, like split rings, they can be so useful when designing patterns and wanting to move from one round to the next without cutting and tying.

What I realised is that it's exactly the same movements to make a CWJ, as long as you make sure the other shuttle thread is in the right place.  I will be making a new video showing this very soon.  Hopefully others who may be struggling with the CWJ will find it useful too.

Best wishes,
Frivole

Small Doily - 3rd Round

I'm working on the third round and I thought it looked pretty as I tatted last night, like a giant flower on my knee...

Again I'm enjoying tatting rings with flipped stitches and chains with unflipped for this round.  It really saves a lot of time and fiddling with not having to turn your work over, or rewind your shuttles.

I like how this third round adds a lot to the size of the doily in one go.

Best wishes,
Frivole

Small Doily - 2nd Round

A pretty quick second round.  Looking a tad "wonky" in places but I've not blocked it and I think that will rectify itself once I attach the third round anyway.  Very short chains on that round so I made the rings with flipped stitches and the chains with unflipped.  Much quicker.  Onwards to the next round!

Best wishes,

Frivole

Small Doily

I showed you the small green doily with my tulips a couple of posts ago... It's doily XIV from Jan Stawasz's red book.  I decided to make it again.

Here's the start.  I'm using a ball of Anchor Freccia which was a gift from a tatting friend.  I'd not tried that thread before.  It seems finer than a 20 and softer than Lizbeth.  It says "16" on the ball... not sure how that relates in size...

Best wishes,
Frivole

Horseshoe Lace Socks

Well, these took me a bit longer to complete than expected!  It's not a difficult lace pattern but it's still much slower to knit of course than plain knitting.  The pattern can be found here, should you be interested, except I knitted mine from the toe up and made a Fleegle heel (pattern is from the top down, with a re-enforced heel).  She has other nice sock patterns too.

I can't get my camera to pick up the colour right.  The socks look pink but they really are more purple than that in real life.

It was such a gorgeous sunny day today so I went outside with my socks to take photos.

I put my hand inside to stretch the knitting

so you could better see the lace pattern.

And finally...

pink and green... or purple and green

always go so well together,

don't they?

Right, what shall the next project be??

Best wishes,

Frivole

Spring Flowers

Just a quick post to share my lovely tulips with you.  I was putting them in my vase and then thought this little green doily would be just right under the vase.  It looked so pretty and so perfect for spring that I wanted to show you.  You've seen this doily before but it's one of my favourites so I'm happy to show it once more!  The design is just great.  It's by Jan Stawasz.  I like it so much I've been looking for an excuse to tat it again.  Perhaps for my sister-in-law's birthday coming up?

Best wishes,
Frivole

Another Birthday...

... another pair of socks!  They are my favourite present to make at the moment.  I love wearing hand-knit socks myself and so have great pleasure in making them for close friends and family.

This is the second time I've used this pattern.  I like lacey socks and this 8-row pattern is easy to memorise.

Best wishes,

Frivole

Happy Easter! ... and a few more squares

I'm a bit late with my good wishes but I hope you all had a nice Easter.

I said in my last blogpost that I mailed my squares to Cathy in Brussels... well they never arrived!  My envelope arrived but the squares were not in it anymore.  Looks like someone probably wondered what was inside my thick envelope and decided to check it out as it was open down one side (I can't really see how this could have happened by accident).

Anyway, I'm quickly trying to make a few more and sending them off straight away as I was sad to think I wouldn't get to take part in this big project.  I don't know why but I decided to stick to just two shades of pink this time around.

Best wishes,

Frivole