Tatting and Knitting

A short update on my knitting project which is a cardigan for my youngest girl.


I have completed the lower part of the cardigan and the left side of the front yoke. I am now a few rows up on the right front yoke.

In between working on the cardigan, I decided to have another go at the bowling doily that I wrote about here. The doily is too pretty not to try again. I think this time it turned out very much better, only because I made some modification to the pattern.


The rows that were giving me problems earlier were the two rows of rings-and-chains (seen here in pink). All the rings in the two rounds are supposed to be joined to each other. For the second try I decided to skip some joins and group the rings in sets of 2s and 3s. That solved my bowling problem. If there are any, it can easily be got rid of by pressing or blocking.

This worked well for the next round that is made up small round motifs. Again, to keep check on the bowling (in case it crops up again) I made the small motifs in groups of 3 and break them apart when joining to the earlier round. That way, hopefully, I can make small adjustments to my tension and picot sizes as I fill up this round.

There are three more rounds after this. Updates when done.

Magic Moment Snowflake

Magic Moment

that is the name that I've given to this snowflake.

And to add some fun to it, I have decided to give this snowflake to one of the commenters from the earlier post. 18 wonderful people have left comments and I am picking the 10th name from the list that has been jumbled up by the list radomiser in random.org.

The lucky person picked is ..... Diane, the lace-loving librarian.

Diane, I already have your address. It will be on your way soon.

For the rest who are not so lucky this time, you can tat this Magic Moment yourself. Follow the link to my Patterns Page to get the pattern.

Magic Moment Snowflake

This model is made with size 40 Lavender Orchid HDT from the Yarnplayer. It measures up to 10.5cm (4.25in) across. If made with size 20, it may be large enough to be considered as a small doily.

The Chart

The pattern (uses two shuttles)

R(7-2-7), reverse work (RW).
(#)C(6-6-6-6), RW.
R(7+2-7), join to last picot of previous ring. Do not reverse, DNR.

Switch Shuttle (SS), C(6), RW.
R(4+4-4-4), join to last picot of previous long chain. DNR
SS, C(4), DNR.
(*)SS, R(4+4-4-4), join to last picot of previous ring, DNR.
Repeat from (*) FIVE times more until there are seven rings altogether. RW
C(6), DNR.
SS, R(7+2-7), join to the picot of the adjacent ring. RW.
C(6+6-6-6), join to the last ring of the seven-rings set. RW
R(7+2+7), 1st join to the picot of previous ring, 2nd join to the picot of the first ring. DNR.
SS, C(3-3-3-3), DNR (**)
SS, R(6-4-6), DNR.
SS, C(3-3-3-3), DNR

SS and repeat from the beginning. For the chain in step (#), replace the picots with joins to opposite chain.

Continue with the pattern until (**). For the next step, make the ring R(6+4-6), joining to the first ring of the centre, followed by the chain C(3-3-3-3).

The Un-Learning

or .... another way of looking at it ... it's not just about the flip.

Do you still remember how you first learn to tat, shuttle tatting in particular.

How your fingers have minds of their own and wouldn't just go the way you want them.
How they cramp up stiff trying to keep the loop thread in place.
How the little pinkie turned black and blue from the many turns of the ball thread around it so that it will not slide.
How you did the happy dance when you finally get the thread to flip.
How the loop grew smaller and smaller as you make the flipped stitches because you don't want to let it go in case you cannot get it back round your fingers again.

Then .... when you are confidently flipping your double stitches, someone comes along and say to you ... " No, don't let the thread flip!" .. and you go ......

"What the ______ (fill in the blank)! after all the trouble I've gone through, now you are telling me don't flip?"

Well, what can I say. Tatters are very creative and have come up with various techniques to use for making tatting more beautiful. And now we are un-learning the flip for some of these techniques like the split ring and the daisy picot, or the front-side/back-side tatting.

What? Tatting has a back-side? *rolling eyes* that is for another day, :-)

No tatting to show this time. I have not tatted any since the last post.

Sometimes the Tatting Just Click

Yesterday, I didn't have anything in mind and had nothing else to do. I decided to load up two shuttles and let my fingers fly. What came out of it was truly a happy surprise.

I was very satisfied with myself considering that I didn't sketch anything out beforehand. And, the stitch counts just fit in very nicely. I did not have to unpick to change the stitch count (well.. okay, I unpicked once because I made a join to the wrong picot). But most importantly it lays flat. I didn't have to block it at all.


This is the raw cut of a snowflake motif. It you look closely some picots got dropped half-way through it because I didn't like the way the are crowding up. This was tatted with size 50 thread and measures 10cm (4inches) across.

The one below is the refined version. I made slight changes in it - put in extra picots, made additional joins and changed the curve of the chains in some parts. But the stitch count remains the same.


This version was tatted with size 40 Lavender orchid HDT from the Yarnplayer. The finished size is 11cm (slightly over 4.25inches).

How I wish it is as easy as this all the time ... *big sigh*