Motif 23 - 25: Finishing with the Malaysian tatters

Last Saturday the Malaysian Tatters had their second meeting.  Jon Yusof is the group's founder and she has a lovely write-up about it here.  The stars and my kids' various activities aligned so that I could actually come, so I put all my tatting in a box and went.

It was fun sharing tatting tips, and seeing other people's work.  There were all sorts of tatters; new ones, intermediate ones and tatters who had been tatting longer than I've been alive.  Zarina and Jon generously spent their time showing people the flip.  Jon even had an excellent little booklet teaching how to tat in Bahasa Melayu.

I brought Jane Eborall's goat to work on, but neglected to bring a full printout of the pattern, so had to stop half way.  Then I worked on another forever doily, making many mistakes, while eating, browsing other people's books, buying HDT, and generally confusing people with the many ways there are to tat.

There are two things I want to remember from the event.  The first is that I'd like to try slowing down a little.  I'm not unhappy with my tatting.  I love the flow of making stitches and sometimes it makes me sloppy.  I think that's OK, but looking at Jon and Zarina's neat stitches, I think I'm going to find a really nice pattern, then take my time working neatly through to the end.

The second is that I want more 6-ply!  I don't have much in my stash because until a few years ago, I didn't have access to any, but looking at all the lovely thread people brought, I think I'm going to get a bit acquisitive.  It was great fun, but I don't have any pictures.  I find it very hard to be present in an activity if I'm taking pictures, so in general, I just tried to enjoy the moment.

I've always been a 'Lone Ranger' kid of crafter so I was quite and nervous to go to the meet.  I burned off the nervous energy by finishing and blocking some bits of tatting to go into my tatting box.  Those bits were the last motifs of my second round of the 25 motif challenge (late as usual).

Here's the first one.

This is the Riego grapes bookmark, as interpreted by Martha Ess.  The grapes are tatted using a needle (not needle tatted, but using the needle like a shuttle).  It's a fiddly process, but I think it's worth it.  Look at those little grapes, with all the colours shading one into the other.  So cute.

The next one is the 'Beaded Jabot' from Yusai Shokoin's 'Tatting Ideas' book.  I call it the 'Questionable Jabot' because it raises many questions:-

QUESTION 1: What is a Jabot?
According toWikipedia, a jabot is a sort of neckwear, worn in 17th and 18th century Europe.

QUESTION 2: What is a 17th century clothing item doing in a modern book of Japanese patterns?
Wikipedia has no answer for this, but it makes me wonder about Japanese sensibilities....

QUESTION 3: Why was my t-shirt and jeans wearing self compelled to make a jabot?
It was the beads!  The beads drove me to it!

The last one is the lovely Flora butterfly from Adelheid Dangela's 'Tatted Butterflies' book.  I read somewhere (sorry, can't remember where) that those solid tatted shapes are called 'leaf structures'.  So, in honour of the name, the butterfly is a light leaf green.  It looks refreshing this way, but perhaps it would be cuter with more colours.

Motif 21 - 22: Sad hearts

This morning I realized that it was Valentine's day.  I have some tatted hearts, and yesterday would have been a good day to show them.  Still better late than never.

The first heart is Tatman's 'Modern Heart', done in DMC 20.  The inward facing picots are straightforward, but I had to keep reminding myself not to flip the around.

Next are the is the Sweetheart earrings from the Yarnplayer's Boutique Tatting book, done in DMC cordonette 20.  These were an easy tat, and a great way to make use of my bead stash.

These are blue hearts, which I think is appropriate for today.  Today, the internet tatting community is full of sadness for the passing of the Tatting Goddess.  I did not know her personally, but I learned a lot from her web pages when I first started tatting seriously years ago.  Thank you Tatting Goddess.

Motif 20: Golden snowflake

This is the second motif in my set of seven tatted blobs.  This one is the 'Sahmura' snowflake from Jon Yusoff's Elegant Tatting Gems.  This design reminds me very strongly of the traditional Malay accessories my grandmothers had, all swirls and negative spaces.

 

I wish I had pictures to show, but most of the pieces have been lost in time.  Here's a picture from the Malaysian Tourism site, although my grandmothers had simpler more utilitarian stuff.

  

It makes me wonder if the snowflake could be tatted in fine gold thread, then stiffened, so it could be a brooch.  Hmm, time to google for 'gold thread'.

Motif 19: Flower medallion

In my last post I showed a set of unfinished motifs.  Here's the first one.  It's a medallion from the flower garden cluster in the 'Tatter's Treasure Chest'.  I like the little sprays of leaves.  I think it gives the whole a 'vintage' feel.

I used split rings throughout to get from motif to motif. I almost always use split rings to climb out of rounds, but for motifs like this, I'm never sure if they are the right choice.  Cut-and-tie results in bulky ends to hide, but split rings also distort the shape of the rings, turning them into footballs instead of ovals.  Still, it's a pretty pink.  Perhaps the little lady is due for a new dress?

Motif 18: Forever doily

I had some quite time at the end of last year, so I tatted and tatted.  The first thing I have to show for my tatting spree is this doily.  I joined a tat-along on the Malaysian Tatters facebook group earlier this year.  The pattern was a clover doily by Eileen Stafford.  I over-complicated things by adding beads.  After many starts and stops, the last double stitch was completed a few days ago.

Somehow, finishing wasn't very satisfying.  Finally, I bit the bullet.  First, the doily got a good wash (it really needed it after being carried around in my bag for almost a year).  Then I stretched it into shape on an old cloth diaper, covered with another diaper and stacked a pile of books on it.  Here's the result.

Much more satisfying!  I also tatted these...

Here are 7 indistinct blobs of tatting.  Inspired by the header of the 25 motif challenge blog, I made a medallion, a snowflake, a heart, a bookmark, a butterfly, a pair of earrings and a small bit of tatting.  Looking all those messy ends, I'm starting to question the wisdom of my 'tat first, finish later' approach.  Considering how long it takes me to finish, block and photograph things, it might be another year before I finish writing up the posts for all of these.

Motif 17: Potholder dragonfly

I thought I'd try something different from flowers and butterflies.  Unfortunately, inspiration proved elusive so the best I could come with was this little dragonfly.  I know, dragonflies are almost the same as butterflies.  This is Lisa Reichert's dragonfly, worked in chunky size 2 thread.  It's a simple, effective pattern, but I'm not so sure about my version.

A while back, I made up some skeins of thread, mixed up some batik dye and let the kids loose.  The result is a little container of mixed up HDT.  Some of the threads came out quite pretty.  Others came out looking like turmeric mixed in mustard.  Both are nice in food but neither is nice on fibers.  Still, add some beads and it's an interesting looking dragonfly; in a macrame potholder sort of way...

Motif 16: Pearly flowers

I still have flowers on the brain, so today's motif is a little flower brooch from Tatting Lace by Sumi Fujishige.  These are done in Anchor variegated perle cotton 8.

It would probably have look better with darker beads, but on the whole I'm happy with it.  I think it's proof of the enriching potential of tatting.

Start with some cheap beads.

Add some knotted thread, and get pearly flower buds!

Motif 15: Someday magnolia

I first saw Nancy Tracy's tatted magnolia on Umi & Tsuru's blog.  It's impressively cute, so I saved the pattern and planned to do it someday.  I can see from Umi and Tsuru's post that this was over a year ago.

Oh well, today is someday, so here's my version, in bud, and in bloom.

After tatting the pattern, I'm even more impressed.  It's clever as well as cute.  The way the base supports the center, the ruffly middle bits, the overlapping petals, all of it clever.  The only tricky part is getting the chains between petals going the right way.  I'm putting this picture here for reference.

See, the chain comes out the front of the first petal and wraps round to the back of the next petal (Many apologies to Nancy Tracy if I got that wrong).  I have a feeling I'm going to need this picture in future.  I'm planning to make a whole bouquet of magnolias someday...

Motif 14: Flying SCMRs

I had a sudden itch to tat self closing mock rings, so I went straight to the GR-8 page and tatted some butterflies.

In the spirit of fairness, I won't point out which ones are THE butterfly and which are 'Da Udder' ones.

Motif 13: Peaceful snowflake

The beaded tatting was making me beady eyed, squinting to get the thread through those tiny holes.  So I took a break and made another of Hajjah Jon's elegant snowflakes.

This is the Adan snowflake from Elegant Tatting Gems, done in heavenly blue Cebelia thread.  There's something peaceful about the changes of direction in this design.  Ahh, so restful.

Motif 12: Double edged butterfly

This is Jane Eborall's Large Fancy Butterfly done in DMC Cebelia along with a rather alarming number of beads.

The fancy edging is unusual and makes for a striking motif.  To be honest, I'm not sure I got the edging completely right, so I just tried to be consistently wrong so the wings would match.  The edging is not that hard to do, but it does require more equipment than usual.

Here's what it looked like in progress.  There are:-

• three (3!) shuttles
• a little string of beads on a floss threader, ready to go on the picots
• paperclips, paperclips and more paperclips to hold the beads in place
• print out and pencil so I could keep track without losing all my brain cells (Jane Eborall functions magnificently with brain cell #3, but I definitely need all of mine)

Motif 11: Light on bracelet

The little lady seems to know that the best way to get me to make her more stuff is to use the stuff I've already made.  She's been wearing her blue beaded bracelet lately, so I started a new one for her.

This is the 'Bloomer' bracelet from Marilee Rockley's 'Boutique Tatting' book.  The yarnplayer does two things I like very much.  First, she sells PDF versions (great for avoiding shipping costs) and second, she gives people a way to sell things made from her designs.  I admire the work that designers do, but being able to execute a design is also a skill.  The sort of license the yarnplayer uses lets the designer and the design-user interact in new ways.

The yellow seems awfully bright to me, so I think of it as a 'lit up' bracelet.  That's my hand modelling it, but the little lady takes possession later.  I probably should have reduced the number of repeats to fit her little hand, but she's been doing a lot of growing lately.  I'm reluctant to shorten anything for her.  All her dresses are midis now.  I could have sworn I bought them full length a few months ago.

Motif 10: Interesting?

This motif is number 26 in 'Beads and Beads Tatting 1' by Mituko Ikuta.  The book is great, in that it has some nice techniques and some usual bead uses, but some of the designs look a bit dated.  So for me, this particular design is more interesting than attractive.  I'd love to get a look at book 2 and 3 in the series.

There are some mistakes there; some miscounted chains and stitches the 'wrong' way around.  Still, split rings makes me happy, so I'll leave it as it is and chase perfection some other day.

Motif 9: Green beauty

I got Jon's new book, Elegant Tatting Gems, last month and made this snowflake.  It's been done for a while, but apparently weaving in ends and taking photos takes weeks and weeks.

The book is very inviting, so I grabbed the first thread that caught my eye and did the first pattern in the book.  This is the Adiratna pattern done with Oren Bayan metallic. Jon gives the meanings of the names here.  So, loosely translated, this is the 'Green Beauty' snowflake.  In hindsight, I should have started from the back.  The last pattern is named 'Zamrud' or Emerald.  A green emerald would have been more poetic.

Motif 8: Onion doily

Those onion rings are still occupying space in my head, so I made this little onion ring doily.

This is the 'Green Vedallia' doily from Roger AKA Freedman's needle tatting site.  My version should be called 'Yellow onions and shallots'.

I have great memories of the needle tatting boards.  I learned to tat in my teens, but I had trouble getting past simple one ring edgings.  The problem was those old line by line patterns.  I didn't know it then, but I' miserable without a diagram.  I slogged at it though, because I really liked the look of the lace.

Then in my twenties, I found the needle tatting boards.  There were many lovely intermediate patterns that I wanted to try.  The things is, I don't needle tat so half the instructions sounded like gobbledygook.  The instructions didn't make sense, but Roger AKA Freedman has some of clearest pictures I'd ever seen.

It finally hit me that I didn't need the words.  I just needed the pictures and the stitch counts and I could figure it out myself.  It was a eureka moment for me and I've been a happy tatter ever since.

Motif 7: Clever onion rings

Today's motif is a little onion ring butterfly from Tatted Butterflies by Adelheid Dangela.  I haven't done a lot of onion rings, so I googled and found some lovely tutorials from Jane Eborall and Georgia Seitz.  The onion rings are worked as concentric rings, with a single shuttle.  I thought, "Oh, that's clever.  Let's try it!".

It turns out I was being too clever.  My onion rings didn't look like the picture.  The stitch count was off and the rings wouldn't lie flat.

The pattern clearly states "Work using 2 shuttles".  Onion rings with two shuttles are done by working the center round as a normal ring and the outside rounds as a series of chains.

Here's the final butterfly, with two shuttle onion rings.  I think it looks better.  It certainly lies flatter.  So, perhaps the moral of the story is: It's more important to read the instructions than to use clever techniques :)

Motif 6: Butterflies old and new

I have two butterflies to show. The first is this little motif from Tatted Butterflies by Adelheid Dangela, done in hand dyed Cebelia 20. I just got the book last week. There are no written directions, just some charming hand drawn diagrams. I love it! No words means I can just dive right in and tat.

 

Next is this butterfly from last year. The little lady claimed it, and I finally put it on a dress for her birthday earlier this month. I tried a new technique for attaching the butterfly. First, I sprayed the back of the tatting with spray mount. Then I stuck the butterfly on the dress and stitched down the picots with a sort of running stitch.

The spray adhesive worked much better than the method I used for the little lady's snowflake dress. For that dress, I pinned down the snowflakes. The pins distorted the motifs and I ended up pulling out a lot of stitches. The spray mount made the butterfly stick, sort of like masking tape. I could stitch the picots down very quickly, and the spray came out easily in the wash. I probably wouldn't try this on an heirloom, or something delicate, but for something utilitarian, it works great.

Here are some close-ups. Here's the butterfly on the front.

There are pink bias binding strips for straps, and a teardrop for the back. The button is purple. It doesn't match, but it's the little lady's favourite colour (after pink of course).

I'm making a lot of sleeveless dresses lately, for two reasons:-
1) There are few things lovelier than a little girl in a sun dress
2) I'm afraid of sleeve caps

Anyway, that's all from me today. My workload hasn't really decreased, but I've found that trying to make more time by not crafting just makes me cranky and unproductive. So hopefully the next post won't take a whole month.

Motif 5: Final snowflakes (or maybe not)

These snowflakes have been done for a while now, but for some reason, they were feeling shy and felt they needed blocking.  How does the saying go again?  90% of the effort is in the last 10% of the job?  I believe it.  Blocking, taking pictures and posting seem to take 2-3 times as long as the actual tatting.

 

 

These are the last 3 snowflakes in Jon's Tatted Snowflake Collection.   From left to right, these are 'Milky Way', 'Carousel' and 'The Twirly'.  Originally, I had all sorts of plans to make these in metallic thread, or silk, or using some fancy new technique.  In the end I just used DMC Cebelia 30 and a pair or Aero shuttles.  I love learning new techniques, but sometimes it's good to remember how much fun it is to tat.

 

These are just in time too.  Jon just showed the pictures for her new book.  Ooo, what fun!  These won't be the last snowflakes after all!

Motif 4: Brooch & FO Friday: Cyber Zombie

Today I have both and FO and a motif.  I know some people separate their crafts into different blogs.  It does make for a nicer reading experience, but I don't think I could manage more than one blog.  So, with apologies, I'll leave it as, a jumble reflecting the insides of my jumled up head :-)

In no particular order, here's a the Kerongsang motif from Jon Yusof's Tatting with Rings.  I love the names of the patterns in this book.  Jon named them after all sort of pretty things in the Malay language.   Kerongsang means brooch, so I'm planning to put a pin on this and use it to jazz my baju kurung.  It's done in the sadly discontinued Altin Basak metallic polyester.

 

Fellow Malaysian, Paul, made a nice comment on one of my cluny attempts.  He said, "Everyday when you do a part of it, it reflects you that day; so one part will be wonky, one part will be too tight and never really often, perfect."

I like that thought.  A mistake is not a mistake, or rather, not just a mistake; it's a record of life events.  This particular motif is a record of living through a house renovation.  There are tight rings from when they used the electric saw (which made me clench my teeth).  The uneven wrapped stitches are a record of the uneven zzzt... zt.. zzzzt of the drill that completely threw me off my rythm.  Still, the crafting is helping me keep my temper and my sanity through the noise.

Next is an amigurumi for Tami's Amis FO Fridays.  As I understand it, the idea of the WIPs and FOs is to socialize and get feedback and encouragement.  I like the idea and I've been looking around at all lovely crochet and knitting, but still feeling a bit too shy to comment. 

My many WIP heads yielded only one FO; this Cyber Zombie from Creepy Cute Crochet.  This is a nice book to have for making toys for boys, but a lot of the charm of the dolls comes from the finishing details.  All the embroidery and embellishments have to be done right in order for the doll to look good.  Personally, I find this quite difficult.  This is the second time I've made this pattern, and only now am I able to get the exposed wires on the arm somewhat presentable.

Motif 2-3: Bracelet and heart

The little lady's bracelet is finished.  Here it is with the treasure box we made to hold it.  The box is from the Canon website.  We worked on it together; I cut, she glued.

The bracelet is just tatted split rings with enough stitches and picots to snug up to the beads.  It's just the right size for the little lady, but I wish I'd added a few repeats.  Then I could share with her!  Is it OK for a 30+ woman to wear blue plastic beads?

CindyK left a suggestion to make some tatted hearts.  I like the idea very much.  So here is Martha Ess's Two Hearts in One.  I like the serendipity of online tatting.  Here's another version from Val's Simple Passions. 

Round 2 really is the toughest.  These days, the thought of wasted paper bothers me, so I try not to print patterns, instead working off the computer or the iPhone.  For this pattern, I had to give in.  I printed it out, found 2 quiet hours, and glued my eyes to the paper.

It also helped that I don't reverse my work.  It reduced confusion.  I learned this technique from Teri Dusenbury's website, although I can't find the exact link right now.  I'll keep looking.  Basically, the rings are worked with flip stitches.  The chains are unflipped (encapsulated).  I just switch shuttles between rings and chains.  It also saves having to wind up the long thread after making rings.