Another Primrose, More JS, and Butterflies

After tatting Primrose by Rosemarie Peel which I wanted to try because it used a safety pin to hold the picots and I was curious...  I remade the motif using a centre ring first instead and then joining to very small picots.

Here are both motifs, side by side.  What do you think?  My conclusion is that I'm not sure it's worth using the safety pin which I found fiddly to work with.  Maybe, the chains lie a bit more easily next to each other with the pin but that's about it.  The second flower looks nearly the same to me and was much easier to make by tatting a centre ring of single picots separated by one double stitch and then carrying on with the chain-ring-chain-join of the second round.  Simple.

In my hastiness I forgot to carry on and make the tail on the second motif.  It was too late, I had cut the threads.

Then I decided to try another motif from Jan Stawasz's book "Tatted Treasures.  As you may know, squares always appeal to me so it had to be this one.  In the pattern, he joins these to plain ring squares which I don't like as much so I was thinking I might try joining a few of these together.  I think they'd look interesting.  Not so fond of this colour though (another DMC Babylo).

I'm always fascinated by how different a square motif looks whether viewed on its side or on its point - don't you think?

And finally, Umintsuru said in a previous post that she'd like to see the butterflies better.  So here's a close-up that shows the 1st round of butterflies and a bit of the second round.  They are similar but slightly different.  Personally, I think the eye is distracted by the round that follows the butterflies.  If it was me, I'd have made a more full band to enclose the butterflies rather than those long chains which mean that you loose the shape of the butterflies a the top, I think.

Just realised, looking at the photos that I said above I wasn't fond of the colour for the Jan Stawasz motif and my doily looks the same colour!  But the doily is made in Lizbeth Mocha Light and in real life does look different than the DMC Babylo colour which is darker, browner and with a strange pink tinge to it.

I finally updated my patterns page.  I was trying to add to it yesterday and accidentally erased a big chunk of it and it took me AGES to find all the photos again and put back all the links.  The layout is still a bit weird as the images keep jumping about the place and wanting to misbehave for some strange reason I don't understand.  But now all patterns and all links are there.

One last thing to say for today:  I'm all excited, I've finally had a taker for tatting lessons!  A friend is coming over on Tuesday and I will show her how to tat.  I hope it goes well, and she takes to it!

Best wishes,
Frivole

Rose Bonbon

This little motif on Renulek's blog caught my eye a while ago.  She has quite a few motifs like that available on her blog (thank you Renulek!) as well as the larger doilies many people have been making lately.

This is the first round:

And the completed motif:

Kind of pretty and frothy isn't it?

Makes me think of candy floss...

And... I FOUND IT!

I was getting quite concerned that this butterfly doily (from the "Tatting from Burda" book) had gone missing for weeks (months even!).  I thought I'd looked everywhere for it (but obviously I hadn't) and finally found it this morning.

It is now so big,  I have to put it on the floor to photograph it.  It currently measures 48cm (19in) across.  I'm not too happy with all the long chains that are in this design.  They need to be pressed into place or they "frill".  So this is not a doily I'm going to enjoy washing too often.  I've now put so many hours into it that I feel I ought to finish it... but I'm having a bit of a Fox moment I think (as she was having with her honey napkin)... luckily I've not had to cut any bits off (though there was some untatting going on in the last butterfly row) but I keep debating whether I like it enough!  I'm currently on round 14.  There is a smaller option that ends on round 16 - so just two more and I'd be done... but there also the GRAND version which ends on round 18 with a final round of butterflies...  will I make it?

As you can imagine, with such a large circumference (about 1m60 or 64in!!), it now takes quite a while to tat just one round.  And I get so easily distracted by all the other small things I can tat quickly!

Best wishes,

Frivole

Doily Progress

Yes, this is still going on in the background.  I must keep the interest up to get to the end...  This is now the second butterfly round.  It is very similar to the first but slightly different.

Those long chains are still annoying me a bit with their unevenness but hopefully they'll blend in more once the whole thing is done and I've pinned and pressed them.

My head is bursting with ideas and I've got so much I want to do... it's just finding the time for it all!!

Hope you're all having a great weekend.  The sun was shining at last today after weeks of rain so it really cheered me up.

I'm adding this paragraph one last time:  don't forget to check out the Marie Smith's Split Chain Post (two posts down) if you've not seen it - I know some people use this technique already but if you've not tried it and don't like split chains, have a go with this method, I'm sure you'll find it easier.  Interestingly, someone has just posted about this method at In Tatters which they found through Jane Eborall's blog - I didn't know she had Marie's method in pictures so you can check that out too if you like.

Best wishes,

Butterfly Doily Progress

Here are the few more rows I have done on the doily.  The long chains needed steaming into place and only really behaved after I tatted the rows of small rings.  I like the rows of small rings but am not completely happy with the two previous rows; due to the shape of the butterflies, the chains look unevenly spaced...

Still, I've got this far, I'll soldier on.

And now I'm going to have a teeny-weeny rant if you'll allow...  I've just been awarded a third "thumbs down" on one of my tatting videos (no, actually two on one and one on another).  And I can't help it:  it bugs me!  Why is it that people give you a thumbs down on videos (I mean I can see it on some videos but tatting ones?)  I wish people had to tell you WHY they dislike your videos when they click on that thumbs down box, so easy to do.  It seems to me there can be nothing offensive or unpleasant enough about my tatting videos that people would wish to mark them down?  Is there?   I know I should not worry about it but it does bug me a little...  What can I say, I'm a sensitive soul...

End of rant.

Happy Tatting!

Best wishes,

I'm Back! - Last of Easter...

I know Easter has come and gone now... but as I was away for it, I still want to show you the eggs I made to decorate our Easter table.

Motif 23

(I'm counting all eggs as ONE... this challenge is going by too fast!)

I just used some vintage edgings and winged it...  Counted the motifs that fitted around the wide part of the egg and made some "ends" matching the number of repeats and then joined them with criss-cross threads.  I was quite pleased with how they turned out.  Might try to find some white eggs for next year.  Funnily enough they can be difficult to find here in the UK.

Once the eggs were done I was wondering what the next project should be...  I'd taken some of my new books away with me to enjoy perusing at my leisure and fancied the look of this doily from the book "Tatting from Burda" (Lacis Publications).

Here is a progress photo:

Motif 24 of 25-motif challenge

Tatted in Lizbeth 20, "Mocha Light"

I've done a few more rounds since I took this photo

so will have more to show you soon.

Now I've been very naughty and sneaked off to do this blog post when I should be unpacking and getting organised for the start of the week tomorrow!  Many emails to answer and matters to be dealt with but that will be for the morning.

Best wishes,