Adding beads

 I like tatting because you can put your own spin on the lace. A designer (perhaps you!) creates a pattern. Thread is dyed (in so many colors!), spun and plied. You can add bling or beads or jewelry findings. So many options!!

I love adding beads to my tatting. Sometimes I’ll add just a few. Sometimes a handful get scattered through the pattern. Sometimes I add hundreds to jazz it up. For my designs based on music, beads can help draw attention to instrumentation, melodic themes, dynamics, or rhythm. Beads can help add complexity while providing continuity.

Adding beads is a necessary skill for the tatter. Come join me on this adventure!!

Using eggs

 I’ve been trying, without much success, to keep organized in 2025. I have just a few more weeks to go. It’s not looking good for accomplishing my goal. No, I haven’t been trying to accomplish those tasks by using eggs. Although a good breakfast generally helps.

I have been working on how to store my tatting samples. That makes it easier to show people what tatting can be. One of the hardest types of samples to keep at hand is my tatting around eggs and ornament balls. They deserve to be seen. I have some windows that I can use. So far, so good. There’s the mantle in my creating room. The shelving has been taken over with books and supplies that don’t fit in the cupboards. I do enjoy this side of creating lace (displaying) and I really must do better (where is that display hook).

The other day I found myself looking at eggs with embroidery on them. This post started it all. They’re pretty. I see lots of potential. And also, I like the way lace can accent shape as it creates more shapes to see. I’ve several sketches to work on now! Perhaps by the time spring rolls around I will have some concrete ideas to work up.

Another one

 

I’ve started another snowflake in yarn. This one is Dec. 21 in the Lene Bjorn book. The Josephine Knots were a puzzle at first, but I did manage them. Now on to the outer round.

Finished with stitching

 

I finished the stitching on the Hardanger project. It’s not a great example. I know I didn’t follow directions well enough. I learned a lot. The use of negative space in the overall design still fascinates me. I see lots of potential in combining tatting and Hardanger.

Negative space explored

 I love working with the negative space in lace. It’s fun to design with that element so prominent. I like paying attention to the silence in music also. A well-placed rest can bring a melody to life.

When we pulled up stakes and moved a decade ago, I found a wonderful group of fiber crafters and artists in my new town. Several meet once a month to explore all things Embroidery as part of a chapter in the Embroiderer’s Guild of America. I’ve learned a huge amount about thread and design and finishing and creativity from this group. Our October meeting explored a simple Hardanger project. Here’s what I have so far:

Mistake fixed

 Remember this funexperiment? Well, upon further examination, it’s a fail. Snowflakes in nature have 6 points. This one ended up with 7. Now, there is a reasonable explanation.

I needed to add yarn to both “shuttles” to have enough to finish out the snowflake. I cut extra long lengths just so I wouldn’t be distracted by fiddling with short ends. Then, I got so caught up in the adding that I lost my place in the pattern. I added alright…..7 extra rings.

I set it aside. For a week….or more……

Then I decided I really would like to gift the snowflake. Out came the mistake, out came the pattern, out came the scissors. But I was having difficulty figuring out which rings to keep and which to cut. So, out came the stitch markers to identify which rings started the repeat, which rings were extra, and which rings I needed to join.

After sleeping overnight on that, I took a breath and cut out rings. Now to figure out exactly what I needed to tat where. Since I picked out enough of the remaining rings to have a good long length of yarn, I was confident that I could tat the final ring while hiding ends. I just needed to figure out where to hide ends, if it was possible to join or if I was just going to tie knots. Oh, and one small detail:

I realized I didn’t have a good enough grasp of the hook tatting technique. I needed to use shuttle or needle. With yarn, needle it was.

After another sleep, I felt I was ready to set up the needle, grab a flosser to help hide 1 end, and sacrifice to the knotting gods (i.e. brew the appropriate cup of tea) to get this show on the road.

Here’s what I ended up with. Now to grab a tapestry needle to hide the other 2 ends.

Tada…..

All fixed.

Ready to gift.

How where’s that glass of wine????

Another Assisi project

 

Here’s my third little sample. I hope it will work for the fundraiser.