New Tatting Books

I'm so excited! I ordered two books (The Tatter's Treasure Chest & Tatting - Theory and Patterns) from Roseground yesterday at about 1430 and by about 1530 I got an email to say they are on the way! They really are lightning fast with their deliveries. I'm still waiting on some shuttles from them but they were out of stock so I don't mind waiting.

Runaway Turtle

Pattern: Tatty Turtle by Mark Myers (pdf).
Thread: Lizbeth size 20, col 690.
Technique: Shuttle tatted.

Another cute little pattern I think.

14 of 25 Originally uploaded by michl_007 on 23rd November, 2009

As you can tell from the picture it's still raining. I don't think it will ever stop! Poor folks in Cumbria are having it really bad at the moment and looks like they'll be suffering the consequences for a long time to come.

I completed this little pattern and got all the way to the finishing ends stage. I got up to make myself a cup of tea and by the time I sat back down my turtle had vanished. I know he's lurking around here somewhere but I decided to make him a twin to keep him company when he eventually shows up again.

13 of 25

Pattern: Apple (pdf).
Thread: Lizbeth size 20, col 671 & col 680.
Technique: Shuttle tatted.

13 of 25 Originally uploaded by michl_007 on 22nd November, 2009

This is a nice quick pattern. Completing a project without leaving yards of thread on the shuttles is quite satisfying and I'm getting better at it.

12 of 25

Pattern: Bookmark.
Thread: Lizbeth size 20, col 144 col 623.
Technique: Shuttle tatted.

I'm not sure of the written pattern details as it's in Italian(?) however the diagram was simple enough to follow. I didn't do the dangle thingie as I don't like dangles on my bookmarks.

12 of 25 Originally uploaded by michl_007 on 21st November, 2009

Another bookmark that I enjoyed making, although not in these colours*. They were chosen because I decided to use up what I already had on two shuttles, taking some extra from the ball to complete the pink.

*Saying that, they've actually grown on me since I finished it.

11 of 25

Pattern: Heart o' Daisies.
Thread: Lizbeth size 20, col 613 col 695.
Technique: Shuttle tatted.

I wasn't even going to take a photo of this as I don't like it AT ALL, but then I figured that spending the time to make it would be wasted if I didn't count it towards my 25.

11 of 25 Originally uploaded by michl_007 on 20th November, 2009

I think part of the reason I don't like this is because I muffed up the top middle, only a little bit but it's still there staring at me. Partly it's all the picots round the outside, though maybe if they were laying more smoothly I wouldn't dislike them so much.

10 of 25

Pattern: Bookmark With Overlapping Chains.
Thread: Lizbeth size 20, col 601 col 623 col 624.
Technique: Shuttle tatted.

I love how this turned out since I'd already started it once and figured it wouldn't work.

10 of 25 Originally uploaded by michl_007 on 19th November, 2009

The chains on the outside were a bit iffy in that they seemed too long and made the whole thing a little wavy, however they looked much better after blocking. I'm getting more used to blocking and therefore less resentful about having to do it. Might even buy some more pins so I can do it properly without having to decide which rings/picots will be lucky enough to get jabbed.

Shuttle Join Ugly

I'm working on bookmark at the moment in pink and white. I'm using a shuttle join throughout the pattern and am finding that I'm not that keen on the way it looks. For example, I might work five stitches followed by a shuttle join and a further five stitches. The stitches after the join always take up more room because there's a slight lump from the join. I've tried pulling the join really tightly, or pulling it towards the first group of stitches but still it looks... displeasing.

Snowflakes

Pattern: The Second Day of December from the book 24 Snowflakes in Tatting by Lene Bjørn.
Thread: Lizbeth size 20, col 690.
Technique: Shuttle tatted.

8 of 25 Originally uploaded by michl_007 on 12th November, 2009

Pattern: The Eleventh Day of December from the book 24 Snowflakes in Tatting by Lene Bjørn.
Thread: Lizbeth size 20, col 601.
Technique: Shuttle tatted.

I like this snowflake and even though it looks pretty simple I had to try a few times as my chains were pulled far too tightly.

9 of 25 Originally uploaded by michl_007 on 12th November, 2009

I'm going to have to work on the whole blocking thing. I don't like the finishing part of craft projects at all but I suppose it's worth the effort. While I did make a small effort with these I didn't do as much as I could have.

*sigh*

Tatting Abbreviations

I keep finding patterns that use abbreviations without telling me what they mean. I'm relatively new to tatting so it's most frustrating. I've decided to keep a list of abbreviations which I'll add to as I come across them, rather than keeping links to multiple lists.

+	join
-	picot
--	medium length picot
---	long picot
c	chain
clr	close ring
lj	lock join
lp	long picot
lr	large ring
p	picot
scmr	self closing mock ring
slt	shoe lace trick
sr	small ring
ss	switch shuttles
vsp	very small picot