Friday, August 29, 2014

Corina's Dragonfly

I've been meaning for some time to tat Corina's beaded dragonfly. The pattern is on her blog here. My advice would be to practise the techniques involved before starting. I read Corina's instructions for the beaded 'diamond' in the split rings and thought, oh yes. But when I came to actually do them, I wasn't sure how to position the final bead. I had done the 'stacked' beads used for the feelers before, though on a chain rather than a ring. I also had to remind myself of the double double stitch. On my first, no second, attempt, I used ordinary rings for the wings and they are twisted and horrible. Double double stitch works better. On this one, I messed up the final ring and had to cut it off. Few more attempts and I'll get it!

5 comments:

  1. But it looks so simple! Now I have to try it!

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  2. Hi Jane. You were brave to give it a try. This little bug seems easy, it is not. The big rings: I use just regular ds. It is working fine too if you try to avoid to enlarge the loop too often (just wrap more thread before making the loop for the ring). And, if you need to do it, just keep all the ds between the fingers and pull the thread. You shold feel the core thread move, but the ds must not move at all. Tha absolute same thing you will do to close the rings. At the first sign of resistance, don't pull anymore. Just push the first worked ds to the supposed closing point, by small groups and then try to close more. repeat until the ring is closed. All this with the ds between the thumb and the index.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Corina, I'll try that. The problem with using the double double on the wings is that it makes the wings too prominent in relation to the body, where a dragonfly's wings should be sheer.

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  3. I will keep this information in mind when I start my dragonfly collection!

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