Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Loop tatted rings

Jane Eborall kindly told me how to create links. Today I'm going to give it a go.

Tatting Fool wrote a tutorial here on how to do Bina Madden's loop tatted rings. It's very clear and easy to follow, but the technique did take me a little practice to grasp. Then I did some experimenting with it. Here's one experiment, a bracelet in two versions. I worked with two shuttles and two ball threads, working from the 'top' and the 'bottom' of the bracelets alternately, so that the flowers face this way and that.









Day 8



Aha, it begins to take shape, though I know Jane can still fox us! A goat perhaps? Jane's diagram looks rather more like a goat than my tatting does, but we shall see.

Monday, January 30, 2012

Progress



The flower bunches in two corners are now complete. Progress! I have one flower to do in the remaining corners, three small flowers in the middle of each side of the cloth, and then the border pattern. I'm not too sure how to do the border. The pamphlet says running stitch. I could do one stitch for each 'dash' on the printed pattern, but they would be very long stitches. 9mm. Perhaps I'll have to experiment when I get that far.

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Day 7



I asked my husband Jack what he thought the TIAS was going to turn into and he said it didn't look like a cow or a dog! I'm not sure that gets us much further, but for the record, that's his opinion.  I suspect my graduation of picots is a little drastic, I do tend to do things to extremes.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Past TIAS



I was thinking about Jane Eborall's other Tat-it-and-see projects. I think my favourite was the hippo. I called mine Hippy the Flower Power Hippo. I donated her to a communcal quilt project, after I'd given the Harare needlework guild a demonstration of tatting. The quilt was to be sent to Canada, which I thought would be a good adventure for Hippy.

Threads



I"m working on the third purpley flower, which is just the same as the last one I showed you, so I thought I would take a photo of some of the things that came in the parcel with the dangly beads. Aren't they wonderful colours? I was glad of white too because I used up most of my white tatting snowflakes before Christmas.

The background is material that was also in the parcel, thanks Penny. I plan to make a dress with it. I ordered a pattern to make up the turquoise silk, but it took so long to arrive that I had to make Plan B for the silk. Now I will use the pattern to make up this material.

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Day 6



I hope I've done day 6's bit correctly. I haven't the faintest idea what it's going to be!

Monday, January 23, 2012

Day 5



I was a bit slow on day 5. I thought Monday was the day, so clearly I wasn't paying attention. Not that it matters, I know, but we wait with bated breath for the next installment!

Another flower



This is the next flower I'm doing. Each corner of the tablecloth has the same design, so I will embroider this four times. How do I know what to sew where? There is a little pamphlet.



It only gives the numbers for the colours, so it's just as well that all the embroidery threads are still with the tablecloth. A note in my gran's handwriting says that number 411 is missing, but I'm glad it's not, because that's one of the colours I'm using now.


OK, I'm off to tat day 5 of the TIAS.

Saturday, January 21, 2012

WIP



I'm still working on the embroidery. The hoop looks wooden but is actually rubber with a wooden 'pattern' on it. It's quite small, so when I do a bigger flower, I have to move the hoop. Which is ok because I work petal by petal. I'm not sure if my gran used a hoop. I suspect not because it was clear that she did the black bits on a number of flowers - it would be tedious to keep moving the hoop for such small areas of sewing.

Friday, January 20, 2012

Silk



Isn't this turquoise silk material gorgeous? I bought it in Singapore in 2010. The material sat here until a couple of months ago, when I had an occasion to wear silk and an excuse to make it up.  The edging pattern comes from the Semco Instruction book No. 16, though I added beads. The thread was also bought in Singapore, but is cotton, not silk. That it matches so well is a happy coincidence.

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Day 4



Right, we march off from the square, I don't know where to though! I'm not absolutely sure I used the correct shuttle to start my split rings. It probably doesn't make much difference here, but I may have to use the SLT again when the beads are needed. 

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Long and short stitch


A few weeks ago when I was reading blogs, I came across some tips for doing satin stitch. That gave me an idea. I've done cross stitch, but not much embroidery. Perhaps I could learn? I dug out my gran's tablecloth that has been languishing for decades. It's linen, with design 235, Tralee,  stamped in each corner. My gran had made a start, embroidering all the leaves and a few of the flowers. I looked up long and short stitch on the internet and then went for it! My stitches might be a bit small and cramped, given that it is worked with the whole six threads of embroidery cotton, but I shall persist. It would be good if the tablecloth could be completed and used, instead of lying about. I might even tat an edging for it!

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Plan C


Well, my idea to make a 'frame' of bugle beads to thread the ribbon through didn't work either. This is Plan C. I made interlocking split rings and then just sewed that to the ribbon. With a loop at one end and a lobster claw clasp at the other. I think it worked. The thread is Milford Satin 2-ply, which is quite thick. I wanted it to be bold enough to cover the ribbon properly.

I have 5 followers! Wow, I'm amazed, thanks. Thanks very much to Jane Eborall who put a link to my blog on her blog. Otherwise, I don't know how anyone would know I exist.

I did day 3 of the TIAS. I think the 'outside-in' structure is very clever. I'm not much good at guessing what it's going to be though - Jane is bound to have something very tricky up her sleeve!

Monday, January 16, 2012

An experiment


My daughter, who lives in Australia, recently sent me a parcel that included these wonderful dangly beads, attached to a ribbon. I thought I could weave the ribbon in and out of  split rings as I tatted, but it doesn't work. It's cumbersome to work with, the beads keep catching and are surprisingly heavy. But worse than that, the finished result is horrible because the ribbon is creased. Another plan required.


I have downloaded Day 3 of Jane's TIAS, just off to try it out. 

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Hallo Tatland

Hallo to Tatland. I decided that I've been lurking for long enough, it's time that I had a go at keeping a blog myself. I'm very inexpert at this, but I can only learn! Let me see if I can put in a picture of my day 2 of TIAS, even though it has already appeared on Jane's blog.