I am a thief...

I'm almost afraid to say it, but I've stolen a pattern! About a week ago I was blog surfing and I found the celtic cross in this post. There are pictures of how the cross is made up, and I thought I'd try to make it for myself. I didn't count the stitches or anything, I just tried. What I made was this:

Not too bad for being made without a pattern, but I think I could have dropped a stitch or two on the chains in the middle... The cross perhaps is a little bulky for a bookmark, but made with a thinner thread (I used Gjestal Maxi, approx. size 10) this would make a lovely pendant! Anyway, I don't want to violate any copyrights, so I checked out the book where the pattern is from (Celtic Tatting Knots & Patterns, by Rozella Linden), and it's now in my shopping cart :)

Two new bookmarks

Before you ask: No, I haven't made them since my last post, I'm still resting and doing only a few stitches at a time... I will wait a little longer before I crochet again, and hopefully my wrists will be fine with a little tatting. Today I've been playing with tatting around buttons - I'll show you later :)

This pattern is Floral Bookmark by Kersti Anear, the thread is Lizbeth 20 in Jelly Bean. This might look fairly ordinary and simple enough to most of you, but let me tell you that it wasn't very easy for me! That might be because I started at with the top flower and made the bookmark from the top down, and the pattern is written bottom up. Heh! Had got too far to pick out the stitches when I realized my mistake, so I improvised a little. Worked it out after the first two flowers :) The chains are a little twisted, but I managed to straighten them out some, and if I press the bookmark with a steam iron the bumps will probably go away, hehe...

This is Stumpy, another bookmark pattern by Kersti. Made with Lizbeth 20 in Mocha Swirl. Love that color! Too bad it doesn't come out very well on that background... I haven't quite finished it yet, it needs a tassel of some sort. This would be a great pattern for a shuttle motif, as I'm sure some of you have seen already... Check out The Tatting Forums if you haven't! It's very easy and quick pattern to do, you can easily make a pair in an evening :)

Clunies!

I'm so exited, look what I did today!

I made cluny leaves! This string of leaves is actually my third attempt. First I tried to follow this tutorial, and I ended up with this:

The weaving is not too bad, it actually looks like a leaf, but I didn't get the loom right and I ended up with an extra loop at the bottom. Beginning the weaving wasn't easy either,  I think my shuttle was in the wrong place, hence the lumpy mess... The top of the leaf was fine until I pulled on the wrong thread when I tried to close that last loop, then the top became just one long knot :/ I cut the thread and tried again, and this time the leaf looked even more promising:

But, somehow I ended up with a loop on the outside of the leaf, a thread going from the top of the leaf to the bottom. Other then that, it was perfect. I really like that the color changes in the middle :)

Finally I started a third time, and this time I looked at the directions in The Complete Book of Tatting. I started with an ordinary ring to have something to hold onto in the hope that it would help, but sadly I got the same results as the second try... Then I suddenly remembered to check on YouTube, and I found this great tutorial, and then it all made sense :) The last three leaves are made following the video:

But I wonder if that lady's loom is different than the others? When I close the loops the leaf sort of bends and becomes more compact on one side. The ball thread is one of the outer loom threads - is it supposed to be in the middle?

Well, that's all I've done today. I have a pain in my wrists and have been ordered to rest as much as possible. Therefore I probably won't post much new tatting in the near future, but some "old" pieces might show up :) By the way, if you want to see what I feel is the cause of  my pain, check out this post on my other blog :)

Tatting to go

I went by the book store to get a new notebook today, and look what else I found! (Sorry about the quality of the pictures - I just used my poor old phone bacause I don't transfer pics from my camera unless I have at least 30 photos to upload, and I just emptied it yesterday...)

A pretty ordinary pencil case, you may think, made of black nylon canvas and (fake?) brown leather. But wait... These are not pencils!

Just look at all the stuff I can get in it!

Three balls of Lizbeth, a bigger ball of some other thread, and eleven shuttles of various shapes and sizes :) Now I can bring my tatting around easily, including WiPs that are attached to a ball, and I don't have to worry too much about squashing or breaking anything. I chose this because of the shape (wider at the bottom) and the fabric, plus it will be even sturdier if I don't remove the piece of cardboard that came with it. Now I am one happy tatter and ready to tat anywhere :)

I bought this for two reasons: one, I have seen some pretty tatting bags out there, and I've wanted one for a good while but can't really afford one; two, my precious tatting box is showing some signs of wear and tear on the lid, and I don't want to ruin it, so I've decided to leave it at home. Unless of course I'm going on a longer holiday - then I would have to bring my entire stash! Here's my dear tatting box, in case you haven't seen it before:

I love that little goblin so much, he's such a cutie :)

25 Motif Challenge

I'm in! Sounds like I've joined a pretty exclusive club or something :) But as I understand it, anyone can join in the fun, as long as it's not to promote yourself as a seller (read it in a post a few days back, you'll find it on the blog). It's all about having fun with your tatting and challenging yourself to get better and maybe try new things. Plus it's inspiring to see what others have done.

It seems I already have my first entry in the challenge! I commented on a random post a few days ago and asked how I could sign up, and this morning I found that my bookmarks have been featured in this post. Thanks :) Now I have to decide what my next motif will be... A bookmark or snowflake? A leaf or a tree? Or maybe a small doily/coaster thingy, or.. or.. So many things I want to make! But I also need to have a life sometimes. You know, spend time with my boyfriend, do my homework, eat something... You get the idea :) 

I'm not entirely sure if I'm supposed to make 25 motifs during a whole year (starting now), or if I am to make all of them by the end of December... But, knowing me, I'll probably be done by December anyway since I have both Christmas presents and ornaments to make. I can see a lot of snowflakes and bookmarks in my future :)

Shuttles!

Got new shuttles today :) A steel Boye with four extra bobbins and a red/pink ("rose") Lacis plastic shuttle with point:

I ordered them from Lacis just last week (the 14th), and they are here already! Super fast shipping from US to Norway, we like :D And the shipping cost wasn't bad either. I e-mailed them before ordering and asked what the shipping would be, and I was told $11 or $12, but I've only been charged $4.50 or something :)

The Lacis shuttle is exactly the same length as a pointed Sew Mate, but the post is shorter, and (for some crazy reason) it's completely circular and is almost as wide as the shuttle itself. This means it won't hold nearly as much thread as a Sew Mate. *grumble* Plus it will need some cleaning and sanding if I want to get the thread through the little hole in the post. 

Hm. Another shuttle for my collection, I guess... These shuttles come in eight different colors, and that would probably be the main reason for me to collect the rest. Some day...

The Boye looks nice, though the hook on the front seems pretty useless... It's not even a hook, it's more like a bump on the side of a pin that's hammered flat. I suppose it works well enough for joining when the picots are big enough :p Don't know if you can see what I mean...

I know that some people don't like to use them because the thread can get caught between the shuttle and the bobbin, which can leave unremovable stains on the thread. I'll keep that in mind and use it only for darker colors just in case :)

I will have to test my new pretties later - now it's time to do some homework!

Moving on to bigger things - bookmarks

My mother requested a bookmark for a book she was reading this summer, and I made her this simple bookmark from the Learn to Tat book:

It's a very easy pattern, but naturally I ran out of pink thread and I had to improvise the end... Despite the easy pattern it took me several days to complete, even though I made it a lot shorter than it's supposed to be. My mother was halfway through the book by the time I was done :p The thread is two different brands of size 20.

One of the first pattern books I bought was Dianna Stevens's Animal Bookmarks - A Tatted Zoo. It has lots of wonderful animal patterns, ranging from (fairly) easy to complicated. I decided I'd start with one of the easier patterns - the Alligator bookmark :) I filled two Sew Mates with green and yellow thread and started the alligator on the long bus ride back from my summer holiday, and a few days later I had made this:

I am still very proud of this one :) The hardest part was the head, and knowing which way to turn the work when doing the eye. I made an extra join underneath the gator's chin to make him less chubby, but apart from that I managed follow the pattern to the dot. Well, except that I made the body behind the back legs about two rings shorter, and I shrunk the second ring from the back of his head in an attempt to give him a neck. I ran out of green thread when I had six or seven rings left, and of course all I had had been on the shuttle...  Luckily I had a practice piece lying around that I was about to throw away, and I managed to unpick most of it and use the thread to finish the alligator. Yay! Can you see that two of the yellow chains on his back are a little fatter than the rest? I almost can't :) 

All in all I am pretty pleased, though I call it a crocodile rather than an alligator - I think crocodiles are way cooler :) The thread is Gjestal Maxi, a cheap crochet cotton about size 10. It's a little soft and lumpy, but it's alright for bookmarks and test projects.

After the alligator I wanted to make another (simple) bookmark, and I came across the Thistle Bookmark pattern online. The pattern doesn't specify what colors to use, so I made it in green and pink to look like a real thistle flower. Pretty, right?

The pattern itself was very easy to follow and gave me no problems at all. The trouble started when I decided that to save myself a little work, I would do a split chain to continue onto the stem without cutting the thread. Yeah, that sure worked... I'd only tried a split chain once before, and that ended in a twisted mess of lumpy half stitches:

This time I actually did the stitches right, but it ended up being to loose, and it didn't look good... I finished the stem, then I attached the thread to the ouside of  the split chain to stabilize it a little, and I continued to add another chain down the other side of the stem. Finally I made another small chain on the other side of the last "lump" of the green circle for symmetry. So I ended up having two ends to sew in anyway, and a very floppy join between the flower and the stem. Meh...

The pink thread is Mölnlycke Virkgarn and the green is Coats Opera, both size 20.

Some tiny tatted things

 

These bugs are made from one of these patterns. The big one is made with crochet cotton (possibly size 10?), the small bug is made with a metallic sewing thread from Gütermann. Quite the difference! For a while right after I learned to tat I made lots and lots of them to test different threads. Since they are only made up of two rings I can just use whatever thread I have on the shuttle, and I don't have to worry about how much ball thread I need... They are very cute, I think I need to use them for decorating stuff :) Here is another one:

This bug is made with the same thread as the one above, only I tried to dye it using red wine.  Yeah, the color of that thread is still fading... Here is yet another bug, made with metallic Anchor thread/yarn:

And a centipede I made from the same pattern page as the others:

Made with size 20 thread in a pinkish rust color. Great pattern for practicing single shuttle split rings! Another great pattern using split rings is one of Anne Bruvold's dragons:

This is "Ringtrim" the Micro Dragon, also made with the wine dyed thread. The tail is made with SSSRs, and two shuttle split rings on the body and head. I never fail to make mistakes following a pattern, and with this one I forgot to make his chin white...

On the InTatters forum I came across a pattern for a super cute little owl:

As you can see, my version is not exactly super cute :p I thought I was using a thick thread (I think it's 10 or 20), and I figured I would need bigger beads for eyes. Yup, it looks more like E.T. than an owl! And the picots are all over the place :/ Need to practice those a bit more... Oh well, I'll make it better next time :) Unfortunately I can't remember who made the pattern, which was posted directly in a thread at InTatters. If I can find an external link I'll post it later!

I had better luck with this tiny butterfly, made in the same thread as the "owl":

Pattern from the book Learn to Tat by Janette Baker. Now, that is what cute is supposed to look like, and my picots are improving as well :)

Lizbeth thread & a small motif

A few days ago I got three balls of Lizbeth 20 in the mail, ordered from this site. I simply love all the different colors this thread comes in, especially the variegated ones. At least from the site I'm using, the color selection is much bigger for size 20 than size 40, so that's what I ordered. I'm used to working with size 20, but I'm starting to realize that using thinner threads isn't as scary as I thought! Two balls of Lizbeth size 40 is on their way already, and at least one of them will be used for a Christmas present for my mother :)

The colors I have are #131 Vineyard Harvest, #119 Jelly Bean and #146 Mocha Swirl. Love them! Naturally I had to test the thread right away, and last night I finished this small motif from Julia E. Sanders's Tatting Patterns:

Pattern is "Oval Motif for Triangle 2" (fig. 59 on pages 25 and 27), color is Vinyeard Harvest. As usual this thing needs some serious blocking to become symmetrical :)

I has heard a lot of good things about the Lizbeth thread, but also a lot of bad, so I was really exctited to try it. I love it! It does twist a little, but so does every other thread I've worked with so far, and there's a really simple solution to that problem: drop your shuttle and let it dangle until it stops spinning :) One problem I had not foreseen, though... With the variegated thread I end up finishing the piece with ends that totally don't match the colors of the parts they need to be worked into.  I don't like to cut & tie, because that tends to unravel after a while... What other options do I have? Hmm...

Wonky snowflake

"Fancy Snowflake" from Rozella F. Linden's book Easy Tatting, made with size 40 thread (not sure about the brand or quality).

I started this when I was on the bus - maybe not the smartest thing to do... I made a silly mistake in the very beginning of the snowflake (on the very first chain!), and I didn't discover it until I'd made four of the six points. Bummer! For some reason I had made an extra picot, which meant that the chain was six stitches too long... Hopefully I can fix some of the wonkiness with some serious blocking, ironing and starching!

I've actually spent days working on this project, and today I could finally make the final point! Then I ran out of shuttle thread, on the very last ring :( I fixed it (sort of) by making the last ring of the point with the ball thread and then crossing the threads to continue onto the last chain. A non-tatter (i.e. my boyfriend) probably won't notice, but that huge tangle of randomly crossed threads is screaming at me :/ And here's how I fixed the problem with the extra picot:

This is actually my second attempt at this snowflake, even though it's supposed to be an 'easy' pattern. No fancy techniques, I just can't ever read the patterns correctly the first time... Suppose that only proves that I'm still learning :) Anyway, this is my first try:

I realized fairly quickly that I'd made a mistake, and I turned the thing "inside out" and made this weird square-ish flower thingy instead :)

Me - a tatter!

I'm still just a beginner, but I'm proud to call myself a tatter. Shuttle tatter, actually :) 

In case you're interested, and haven't heard it before, here's the short version of how it all started:

One day towards the end of July I found an old tatting shuttle in my grandmother's stash, and I knew my mother knew how to tat, so I had her teach me. The shuttle has belonged to my great grandmother, and I'm very happy to be allowed to keep it and proud to be able to use it :)

Like many other things in my life, tatting soon became an obsession. I love collecting stuff, and shuttles became natural collector's items. I like the shape of them, and they come in so many pretty colors - I need to have them all! Judging by my shuttle collection and the many tatting books I've aquired you'd think I've been tatting for years and not two months :p And I don't think I'll ever have enough pattern books, even with the amount of free patterns you can find online. There's just something special about books... I need to have my own library when I grow up!

Anyway, the first evening when my mother tried to teach me I couldn't do it. You know, flipping the stitches, it just didn't make sense. In the end I just threw the whole thing away in frustration and continued crocheting instead. The next day I was tatting all by myself! I guess it helps to sleep on things :) (That's literally what I did! All summer I slept on a double sofa-bed, and the half not occupied by me was constantly covered with all my craft stuff...)

Here's the first item I made:

The pattern is Flower Bookmark by Yarnplayer. You can see that I didn't use a picot gauge... Later I made the bookmark again, but I added  big black beads instead of making the dreaded picots:

The thread is Mölnlycke Virkgarn in pink, size 20.

First post...

Just need to post something so I can customize my blog colors properly. Here's a picture as well:

Plus here's a link to my other blog, just to see the link color :)