So What Exactly Am I Doing Here?

As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve been focused the last couple days on an easier pattern from Priscilla Tatting Book #3.  In yesterday’s project I doubled it over to make a bracelet.  In today’s project I just added a second row of all chains to finish it off.  I think I might actually like this one better than the doubled over version.  I’ve been playing around with two colors as well and think that this version does quite well with two colors.  (Sorry for the poor lighting in the pictures lately.  It gets dark around 4:30 here now and I haven’t been getting anything photographed during the day.  Perhaps it’s time for me to invest in a lightbox.

I’ve probably latched on to the quick and easy because I’ve been giving some more thought to what I want the final product of this whole Priscilla project to be.  I still have the pie-in-the-sky idea of rewriting ALL the patterns in all 4 books (Priscilla Tatting 1-3 and the Tatting and Crochet Yoke book), but am starting to settle down and try to figure out what is practical.  If I can get it all together I’d like to publish it in book form (either printed or PDF), but have been giving some thought to what is actually a viable (sellable) useful product for tatters.  I have no doubt that with a lot of the patterns what I am doing by modernizing them is completely useful, but some of the little projects like this edging don’t really need any changes on their own.  (That being said, the adaptations for projects like this bracelet and my own and I think they’re fun, even if not particularly complicated or hard to come up with.)

So what should I do?  Focus in only on the complicated, incorrect or difficult projects?  Or do everything including the easier patterns like this edging?  I wouldn’t really feel comfortable charging money for the patterns for these easier ones that don’t require much (if any) modernizing, but also think that if I can do all the patterns in the books that tatters would appreciate having a complete set of all the modernized Priscilla pieces.

What I think I’ve come up with is this: I’m going to go ahead and write-up the easier patterns the same way that I’m doing the more complicated ones.  They are interesting to do, good practice for pattern writing of the bigger pieces, and most of all, a good motivation for me because they are easier to finish and will help keep me on track.  These ones I’ll release for free on my website and on Craftsy.com.  I figure they’ll be good advertising for the Priscilla project.

When I put together the finished Priscilla project these will be included with the others in the PDF, but not calculated into the price of the PDF.  If I get printed versions (my ultimate goal) then they will have to go into the calculation of the price because of the cost of printing, but it will all depend on the pricing/print run, etc.  Of course, that’s way too far in the future with way too many unknowns to even think about.

I have no idea how much of this is just me dreaming about ridiculous goals, but I really hope I can pull this off.  Is this Priscilla project just my own obsession or will other tatters get enough use out of this modernization of the patterns to make it worthwhile?  I’d hate to put all this work into it just to find out no one else is interested.  I guess that is something else that releasing these free patterns will help me gauge as well.

5 Comments »

  1. Marty Said,

    December 11, 2012 @ 8:13 am

    Hello! I’m interested! Some of the old patterns are really lovely — but I’m too lazy to read ’em!

  2. Jessica Said,

    December 12, 2012 @ 11:52 pm

    Thanks Marty! I will probably be slow, but will keep at it! It’s so much fun to come up with the modernizations of the patterns. The main question has been whether others would be interested in them and what is the best way for the distribution.

  3. another jennifer Said,

    December 22, 2012 @ 7:05 am

    You never know what’ll happen unless you do it, right? Good luck!

  4. wodentoad Said,

    March 11, 2014 @ 7:29 pm

    So, I’ve been poking around to see who else has done the tea cloth, as well as hunting down the original source to include it in the Craft Tree site (intatters’ new home), and I saw that you started it. How far did you get? I’m to the border and re-writing the pattern using a combination of the written directions and the picture, as well as making certain parts of it evened up. You’re welcome to check it out, it’s on a thread called “Lost in Translation”

  5. Jessica Said,

    March 11, 2014 @ 11:06 pm

    Hi Wodentoad,

    So far I’m just before the first border. I’ve been having trouble with the oblong motifs and getting them to lay flat. Though I do have to admit that I haven’t worked on it for a while now. I need to get back to it. I’ve been using the border pattern as a bracelet a lot, though and that’s been fun. Thanks for the heads-up on the Craft Tree site. I afraid I don’t get on to inTatters as much as I’d like to and I hadn’t heard yet that they’re moving. A site centered around tatting patterns sounds fantastic. I wasn’t able to get signed in using my inTatters log in so I’ve requested an invitation. I’ll check out the thread when I get logged-in.

    Good luck with finishing up the tea cloth!

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