Preparing for a Visit

I've been invited to demonstrate tatting at Snowshill Manor, a National Trust Property, at the beginning of next month.  I'm therefore preparing items to take with me at the moment.  I thought I'd keep it simple and will just bring snowflakes and some earrings.  Here is a small selection of them:

I'll probably also take a few larger pieces just for display as I think it's nice for people who don't know about tatting to see what can be made.

On another note, I can't believe how much nights are starting to draw in already.  We've had lovely weather this past week (summer-like!) but rain is now forecast for the whole of next week:  autumn is on its way!

I love autumn though and this year is particularly good for wild blackberries from the hedgerows. Wonderful.  I've been making crumbles, pies, and jam.  How about you?  Are you a jam maker?

Best wishes,
Frivole

Pattern Winners

It's late o'clock on Sunday so I visited the random number generator website and asked for three numbers from 1 to 31... and the numbers that came up are?

11, 27, and 28

Comment no. 11 was from TattingLinda
Comment no. 27 was from rosmarie48
Comment no. 28 was from Robin Perfetti

I have contact details for TattingLinda and Robin but rosmarie48, please contact me using the link in the right side bar to let me know your email address so I can send you the pattern!

Thank you for taking part and for leaving lovely comments everyone!  I'm hoping to have another pattern coming up very soon.

Calixa is also now available in my Etsy shop!

Best wishes,
Frivole

New Snowflake Calixa - Pattern Giveaway

As I mentioned before, I ended up creating several different design from the same snowflake inspiration.  I'm still working on the pattern for the one that most looks like the real snowflake (see this post)... but in the meantime, I finally got one version ready.  The initial design idea came together quite quickly but then I spent an enormous amount of time on making different samples to get the stitch count right.

I'm still not completely sure... but I decided enough is enough

and I'm stopping here.  I could keep fiddling with it forever!

Real snowflakes are more angular than tatting and are made of straight lines rather than curves.  For this reason, I like using lock chains as I have in this design:  it's the one tatting technique that produces straight lines.  You can see I have used lock chains in several places in my Calixa snowflake.  It is tatted in two rounds but in one pass, using split rings to move from round one to round two.

I'm giving away three copies of the pattern so if you'd like one, please leave a comment.  This is going to be a quick draw - I'll activate the random number selector on Sunday!  I'll also probably list it in my shop before Sunday... if you can't wait! :-)

I hope to finish the other pattern in the next few weeks so it's available well before Christmas.  I'm about to start my studies again, and am currently catching up on work I should have been doing this summer so I'm pleased to have been able to complete at least one pattern before the start of university.

Best wishes,

Frivole

P.S.  I thank you in advance for the comments - but I hope you'll forgive me if I don't reply individually for this blogpost as it makes it more difficult to count for the draw!  :-)

New Earrings

That's it:  summer's over!  It just went by too quickly.  Everybody is soon returning to their studies (some have already).  I made a batch of blackberry jam from the hedgerows today and also apple and blackberry crumbles and pies.

I wanted to make a new pair of earrings for my daughter.  She does like my tatted earrings and wears some frequently so I thought it would be nice to come up with a new design for her.  I decided to use a plastic ring for the centre to give the earrings more stability and weight, and to help them keep their shape when worn.  I drew an incredibly quick sketch (you can see how dreadful it looks!) and then just started tatting.  The pink version is the first one I made to test the idea and then I made the burgundy pair (one of her favourite colours).

(sorry, evening photos, lighting not very good)

Yes, I think I'm happy with those.

It's late evening now so I'll look forward to seeing them on her ears tomorrow!

Best wishes,

Frivole