Got started on the 4th round of the tea cloth, but wanted to see what the motif that it is made up of would look like on its own.  I like it by itself.  This is about three inches across so seems a bit large in size 10 to use as earrings or a pendant, but maybe in a smaller thread.

I climbed out of the first round on this one to get to the second, but I forgot to start off with a chain so there’s a missing chain on the inner round.  I thought about doing a split chain to put it in, but decided that it wasn’t worth the time.  In the future I’ll just have to remember to either start with the chain or (more likely) make the two rounds seperately.  Actually, I don’t think I have enough of this yellow left to make all eight of them like this so I’ll probably do yellow in the middle and orange on the outside.

I picked out my colors for the next one.  I’m going to try it again in size 20 greens.  Figured I’d might as well start with a new size so that I can get an idea of how it will turn out as far as sizing so I can pick out a size to make the finished tea cloth in.  They actually have a version of this tea cloth at the Lace Museum in Sunnyvale and I can’t remember what size thread it’s made with, but I remember it was a lot bigger than I would have expected and it didn’t even include the outer part.  I plan on making these inner four rounds (maybe the 5th too) out of a couple different size threads just so I can get an idea of the sizing.  Should be interesting to see what they all look like together.

I finished the last circle of the third round during my lunch break at work.  It’s such a bright orange!  I’m going to mix it up with a bit of yellow in the next round.  Should help to even it out a bit.

I’m thinking that in the next one I make I’ll do the different circles in different colors based on the number of rings they have.  It might make it easier to keep track of if you’re trying to make the pattern yourself.  Especially in the next section which is circle on circle on circle and (I think) each of different sizes.

Hmmm…. Kinda looks like the start of an octopus.  I’ll have to keep that idea in mind.

On Thursday I left Seattle and headed back down to Los Angeles.  Drove straight down (well, except for a quick side trip to Lacis, in Berkeley, CA.) and got down here early Saturday morning.  Didn’t do much tatting along the way, but have done a bit since then, mostly on this tea cloth project.  Finished the second round and got started on the third.  The second round is made of circles of 12 rings and chains and then the third is 16 rings and chains just like the first.  In making the circles for the third round I did try making them with just 2 stitch chains, but as you can see, they really did curl up.  They might straighten up when I do the fourth round, but I decided to switch back to alternating between 2 and 3 chains for the rest of them.  This is not a very exciting post, I’m afraid, but soon I’ll start making another version of this in nicer thread and with a few more colors and that should make it a bit more exciting.

Btw, thank you to those who have offered to do a bit of test tatting for me on my Shuttle Birds handout.  I did finish my testing of the choker pattern and have a couple changes to make to the handout.  Somehow I forgot to make a note of the size of thread to use or that it should be CMT. 🙂

Believe it or not, this little motif took me almost two hours to get right.  Sure it was two hours in which I was slightly distracted by watching TV, but still.  Two hours for this simple ring and chain circle.

I’m tackling the large tea cloth in the Priscilla #2 book. It’s a gorgeous piece and one of the things that drew me to the Priscilla books in the first place.  But is so often the case of the patterns in the Priscilla books, it’s taking a bit of tweaking to get right.

The main difference seems to be the change in the length of the joining picots.  These days picots are usually shorter and most of the ones in the Priscilla books seem to be much longer.  Shortening the picots shortens the outer size of the circle and made it twist back on itself the first few variations I tried.  The original pattern calls for rings of 2-2-2-2 and chains of 4.  I tried that and then tried rings the same and chains of 3, but even that would twist them.  Chains of 2 seemed to be too far in the other direction and I didn’t want to change the stitch count on the rings at all so in the end I went with chains alternating between 2 and 3.  It was a bit tricky to keep track of while tatting, but it seemed to work.

For this particular pattern it may not end up mattering so I may go with chains of 3 since it wasn’t far off and if the rest of the pattern stretches it out some it will work just as well.  We’ll see.  I’m looking forward to tackling some of the other motifs in this t

ea cloth, but at the moment I’m just focusing the center part – the first 4 rounds.  In the close up here, though you can see that there’s going to be a lot more of these little circular motifs so they’re going to keep me busy.  Unfortunately this also means lots and lots of ends to hide.  As usual, I’m doing my first run through in size 10 Royle thread and not worrying about the ends, but eventually I’ll want them to look nicer.  I’ve see a partially finished version and it’s much larger than you would first expect.  The Lace Museum in Sunnyvale has one that has the center octagon finished (up to the point that the cloth pieces start) and even in a small thread it’s quite large.  I had been thinking of making it in size 80, but as I look at it again and contemplate having to sew in all those ends I’m rethinking that idea.  I think I’ll still make a couple versions of the center part (the first 4 rounds) in different sizes just for the size comparison, and to see how it goes.  Since I started sewing in ends (instead of using the magic thread trick) I haven’t used size 40 or 50 much so maybe once I use them a bit more I’ll find they’re not too difficult to sew in.

Been working on a lot of other projects over the last couple weeks.  Hope to get around to writing more about them soon.

I have decided to invent a new word for the tatting world.  “Tattering” is what friend of mine used once when he couldn’t remember the word for tatting.  I like it and I have decided that “tattering” is what you are doing when you are doing tatting-related things but are not actually tatting.  Sorting your thread stash, organizing your tatting books, writing up patterns, doodling tatting possibilities, blogging about tatting or just flipping through books daydreaming about patterns.  All these things are tattering.

Well, I have been busy the last couple days with some productive tattering.  I am switching over to using Illustrator to diagram out my patterns so I spent yesterday afternoon learning how to use it and this afternoon writing up the handout and diagrams for one of my classes for Shuttlebirds.  It took a very long time to make this fairly simple project, but I’m definitely getting the hang of the program.  This particular pattern doesn’t have any chains which look like they might be slightly tricky so I still need to figure how to consistently draw those.

That makes two of the five handouts finished for my shuttlebirds classes.  (I am teaching Gina Butler’s chain of single-shuttle-dimpled hearts as one of my classes and using her handout for it.)  Next step is to make another sample using my instructions and see if I catch any mistakes and then to find a couple test-tatters for it.  The pattern uses split rings and a lock-stitch chain (I also have instructions for the lock-stitch from a previous class that I can include with the instructions for the choker).  Let me know if you’re interested in test-tatting.  I should have it ready for outside eyes in about a week or so.

I am still trying to decide on proper usage of this word.  Is one who is tattering a tatterer?

Now that the holidays are over and I’m feeling all moved and settled in Seattle I’m finding a bit more time to update here.  I’ve been busy with a bunch of different tatting projects though, so I’ve got a lot to get caught up on.  One of the things I did before leaving San Diego was to try dyeing thread with pomegranates.  I had about six that I was cutting up to get the seeds out and I use the method of putting them into water to keep them from squirting juice everywhere.  To dye the thread I just threw the skein in with the pomegranates and let it soak while I work on separating the seeds.  Every now and again I took the thread out and rolled it around on the cutting board some whenever there was a little pool of juice from cutting.  I was actually going for a more spotted look and this seem to be working.  I had a beautiful dark pink-red and was pretty excited about it until I finished seeding the pomegranates and rinsed out the thread.  I was totally surprised with what I ended up with.

It’s sort of a light gray-ish, blue-ish pink.  Not a bad color, just not at allwhat I was expecting.  I was a bit disappointed because the color that it has started with before I went to wash it is one of my favorite colors, but I’ve wound this one up on a little spool and have added it to my bag of experiments.

I have 9 or 10 more balls of DMC size 20 “white” thread.   I put that in quotations because let’s admit it… DMC white isn’t actually very white.  I haven’t found any really white-white threads except for Lizbeth.  I plan on dying all of the DMC white that I have so

I’ve started winding up 50 yard, ready-to-dye skeins and am keeping them handy whenever I feel like dyeing some.  I wound a couple before I left San Diego and still have those 9-10 more to go, so lots of dyeing in my future.  Right now as far as dye goes I only have that blue that I used before and a yellow, but I look forward to trying out some other new colors.  Eventually maybe I’ll actually figure out how to do a nice pomegranate color.

Huh.  Well, for some reason I can’t get the picture to display right-side up (it was originally taken with my cell phone), but I’ll post it for you anyway.  Last week I drove up from San Diego to Seattle and of course, I HAD to stop at Lacis in Berkeley on my way through the Bay Area.  I wanted to stop at the Lace Museum  in Sunnyvale as well, but the timing didn’t work out.  I got up to the Bay Area too late and they were already closed for the day.  I kept driving north to visit with friends and stopped by Lacis the next day on my way back to the I-5 and the rest of the drive.

Made it up to Seattle on Friday night which meant I got to go to the Lace Guild meeting in Kent the next day.  I’m looking forward to being around Seattle more in the future and getting to make it to more of these meetings.  I’ve done some tatting in the last week and I’ll post about it in the next few days, but I’ve still got a bunch of unpacking and organizing to do so for now I’ll just leave you with some more (un-orientated) pictures from Lacis.

In the picture above is a very familiar motif.  The square piece is made up of the same motif that I’m making my shawl out of.

Here’s the finished motif in yarn for the belt.  I really like these colors and love the way it came out.  Overall it wasn’t too hard to tat with the yarn.  I definitely had to watch as I made my stitches to make sure I tatted a bit more loose than usual, especially on the rings, but that wasn’t much of a problem.

I’m not sure yet what the main length of the belt will be.  I may just decide that I want to do the whole thing in a ribbon that hooks on the motif and goes all the way around to tie in the back, but I’m still partial to doing some more tatting.  Just waiting until I see an edging pattern that I think goes well with this motif.  The dress is a darker and more purple shade of the coral color in center and I’m thinking that doing the rest of the belt in that center color would look good.

Here’s the two pieces next to each other for comparison.  The piece in thread is size 10.

I’ll be taking a small break from tatting and blogging over the next week as I’m packing up to spend the next month and a half in Seattle.  I’ll be driving and leaving early next week.  I should get up there by the end of that week and will be staying until the very beginning of February.  Looking forward to the time up there.  Should be able to make it to at least one of the lacer/tatters meetings in the area.

One of the things I like about this pattern is that it’s mostly chains.  I figured this would work well for tatting with yarn because it’s means you mostly work off the ball and don’t need as much on the shuttle.  Also there are no rings to close or to open if you have to retro-tat.  It went pretty smoothly and I pretty happy with the pattern so far.

This first little motif is just the center and I plan to just put a jump ring on it and call it a necklace pendant.  The next step is to tat it again in the final yarn and to add the second round.  The finished piece will be a large motif that will be the focal piece of a belt in yarn.  I got this thread specifically to match a semi-new knit dress.  The dress came with a thin little belt, but I wanted something that would stand out more and I think this will do the trick nicely.  So next up, I tat this center part again and add the next round.

I tried using one of the new wooden shuttles I bought at Shuttlebirds.  This is the first time I’ve ever felt the need for a shuttle winder.  I know they make winding faster, but I’ve never really minded winding my shuttles, but winding the yarn on the wooden shuttle seemed to pull the yarn pretty significantly.  It’s such a nice tight shuttle I couldn’t figure out a way to wind it without pulling on the yarn and so it’s wound on the shuttle under some stress.  I didn’t notice this so much with the Tatsy shuttle. Felt like this was something a shuttle winder would help with.  The sides would still be just as tight, but I think it would help some with the angle and how hard I pull the thread to wind it.

The first step to making my tatted yarn belt is to make the focal piece in thread.  It’s a motif from one of the Priscilla books that I hadn’t done before, but had seen recently on a couple blogs.  I thought it would look lovely done in yarn as the front part of the belt, but first I had to try it in thread.  My usual mode of operation when trying out a new pattern from the Priscilla books is to tatting it first in size 10 exactly as the instructions say and see how it comes out.  From there I can start to make changes or adaptations, but I like to have that first version to start with.  To make this one I use some of the thread I dyed a while back. I like the way it came out.  Especially the variations in color in the rosette part.

The next step to to try out the center part in yarn.  I think it will go well.  I’m going to make it in a variegated green that I already have wound on a shuttle, but to the right are the colors that the final piece will be made of.  I plan on using the coral color for the center and the green-based variegate for the outer part.