A Brooch, Earrings, and Some Rolled Tatting

A tatting friend generously sent me a sample of two of Karey Solomon's threads for me to try after I had been admiring the original colourway on her blog - Thank you so much! - I was delighted to finally be able to try her threads.  I thought about it for a while wondering what to make with it, not wanting to waste any and keen to make something I would enjoy.  I started with a pair of earrings but then looking at the first earring inspired me to make a brooch based on the same layered flower idea.  This will be going to my Mother.  I hope she'll like it.

Motif 21 of 25-motif challenge

Tatted in Karey Solomon's "County Fair"
with Lizbeth in "Natural"

After making the main flower part, I felt it needed a bit "more"... so I gradually added the dangly pearls at different lengths and with different size freshwater pearls.  They are attached with tiny Josephine knots to give added texture and interest.

And here are the earrings I made for myself.  Karey's threads really are lovely and unusual, unlike any other HDTs I've used so far.  I hope to be able to get my hands on some more in the future!

I also played a bit more with the interlocking rings of the previous post.  In fact this two-tone neutral colours rosette was going to be the brooch for my Mother but I wasn't satisfied with it.  Though looking at it now in photo, it does look pretty (should I send her both?).  I added the tiny pearls on my shuttle thread so I could put one on the top picot of every other ring.  I like them nestled in the centre like that.  Another idea that I might elaborate on.

Motif 22 of 25-motif challenge

Tatted in Lizbeth Mocha Light and Natural

Here is another small project I've been working on (wow, this is going to be a long post!).  Edwige Renaudin teasingly put a picture of this motif in her book saying the method would be in the next book... now that's a bit mean!  So of course, I couldn't resist having a go at working it out.  She calls them "noeuds roulottés", incompletely closed.  So that's what I did.  And I think it looks like what's in the book.  It's rolled tatting really so I'm sure many of you will have tried it before but I only tried it once in the past, not very successfully.  My technique is not perfect so they are not quite evenly worked but I'm getting there.  I still wanted to show you because I liked the different look this creates.  I also didn't think to tie back after the first trefoil so there is an unsightly gap there, at 11 o'clock in the picture (this is done with one shuttle only so the trefoil is not naturally closed at the bottom by changing back to a chain.  Because it's a rolled ring which isn't pulled closed, the bit of bare thread that remains twists itself around the roll and I like the effect that results.  Something else I'll be playing with whilst on holiday.

Motif 23 of 25-motif challenge

To finish, here is Mary's Butterfly

tatted in Jess's hand-dyed thread called "Havana".

Motif 24 of 25-motif challenge

This is going to be it from me for a few weeks as we are going to be away in a couple of days.  I wish you all a wonderful summer.  Back again early September.

Best wishes,

Interlocking of a Different Kind

Still looking through Edwige Renaudin's book (La Frivolité aux Navettes), here are some "anneaux entrelaçés" (which actually means interlocked rings, or "interlaced" rings) and a chain made of interlocked split rings.

I have to say these are much easier to make than the interlocked rings of previous posts.  Even the last ring which connects to two at the end is easier to manage.

The chain of split rings is made with four shuttles:

Perhaps it would have been better if I had used the same colour for each side of the split ring but I just used up thread I had left on various shuttles.  So it's a four-colour split-ring chain!

I like the interlocking rosettes.  I shall be exploring them further.  I feel an idea coming up for a new pattern using these rings...  Actually just one motif (like the lilac and green) on a brooch would look really pretty, don't you think?

Best wishes,

Tourmaline Flower Necklace

To give you some relief from the interlocking rings of the last few posts (and to give me a break too!), here is a necklace I've been working on based on the layered flowers from Edwige Renaudin's book.

Yarnplayer's Tourmaline thread is one of my favourite ever so I thought I would use it to make a necklace.  I happened to have some nice green semi-precious rhyolite which matched the thread very well.  I like adding stones to tatting for jewellery as I find it gives the lace just a nice bit of weight to keep it in place.

Motif 17 of 25-motif challenge

I'm very pleased with how this turned out.

Best wishes,

Having Fun with Layered Flowers

Still playing around with this flower design (based on Edwige Renaudin's pattern).  I've tried two and three layers, different threads and added beads in different places.

I was wearing the pair tatted with "Macarons" by Tat-ilicious again today.

Sun is still shining - three days in a row!  We are spoiled.

Here's another photo in the shade.  Perhaps you can see the detail a bit better.

Hope the sun is shining on you too, wherever you are (though not too hot for our American friends I hope).

Best wishes,

Tatting in French - La Frivolité aux Navettes

Although French is my mother tongue, I have learned and have done all my tatting in English.  All my books so far were in English (apart from a couple of German ones).  I thought it was high time I learned to tat in French.  So with the help of Edwige Renaudin and her book called "La Frivolité aux Navettes", I am learning tatting terminology in French.

I have to say I am finding it difficult!  Just because I'm so used to all the English terms, I keep looking at noeud dessus, arceau festonné, anneau fendu et raccord double feston endroit and am forever having to refer to the lexicon!

The exercises and patterns in the book appear more complicated to me just because I can't read them really quickly like I can an English pattern.  Still, I'm learning new things and am finding her book very interesting.  For example, when making the last ring of a flower, if you flip your work under and up to make the last join, instead of over and up, your shuttles end up on a different side of your tatting which is something really useful to know if you are carrying on with the pattern.  This is probably not clear in words, perhaps I'll have to take pictures eventually.

Anyway, here are some earrings I made based on an exercise in the book.  They are tatted in "Macarons" by Jess! at Tat-ilicious.  I like the construction of these which enables you to make all three rows in one go.  I shall be playing with this some more.

Motif no. 13 of 25-motif challenge

The sun was shining for a rare moment

so I went outside to try to take a better photo.

I liked the shadow of the lace on the leaves behind...

but it was very windy and the earrings

wouldn't stay in place long enough for

me to take a good photo!

I don't think the photos do the earrings

or the thread justice.

They are very pretty and look good on.

I'm wearing them now.

Amitiés dentellières,