TattingChic's Blogaversary Giveaway

Just in case you haven't heard, Tattingchic is having a prize giveaway for her blog's second anniversay. Why don't you drop by and put in a comment, you could win a lovely prize?

Bridal Headband

Here, as promised, is a picture of the completed bridal headband that is for my future daughter-in-law's maid of honour.
I have made it with exactly the same flowers, motifs, ribbons and pearl tatting as the bride's headdress, but with less in it, to distinguish between the two. Can't have the bridesmaid upstaging the bride, now can we? LOL

Rozella Linden Celtic Wreath

One of our collegues on HBT was having difficulty tatting the Celtic Wreath by Rozella Linden and so I decided to have a go myself.

I found that the first photograph did not correspond with the pattern given, i.e. there were less picots in the rings and more picots in the chains. What I did was to ignore the first photo and worked the pattern in conjunction with the second photo (the centre motif).

There is a slight error in the instructions to join the last ring to the first ring....3 ds have been omitted after the last join.

I made the mistake of trying to tat this with one shuttle and a ball thread....it needs to be done with two shuttles. When doing the first ring of the second round, the first join must be done from the back of the work. The second join must be done from the front and to achieve this you have to put both shuttles through the motif from the back, to the front. When you make the last join, you need to take the ring thread off your fingers and bring the loop through to the front and then put it back onto your fingers, to complete the ring. This then makes the chains automatically cross over one another.

You can see from my pictures that I didn't get the first two chains right!

Tatting Techniques DVD Progress

I have completed all the recording for the new Tatting Techniques video that I am doing...all I have to do now is to edit it, add music and record it to DVD....which as you can imagine, takes much longer than the actual tatting! LOL

This is a picture of the corsage that I have featured on the DVD whilst demonstrating different technques...such as clunies, wired clunies, wired pearl tatting and how to wire flowers.

There are lots of other techniques and tips as well, such as, starting without a knot, up joins, down joins, joins on the second half of a split ring, opening closed rings, beading, split rings, split chains, and probably more that I have forgotten to mention.

Tatting Techniques DVD

I am think of producing a Tatting Techniques DVD and would like to know your opinion. I aready have links to 4 videos that I have on YouTube, but I thought that I could produce a DVD that incorporated all of those plus other techniques, like hiding ends, starting without a knot, clunies, etc., etc..

Do you think that this is a good idea, or are there enough video demos out in tat-land? If you think it is a good idea, what else would you like to see demonstrated?

Stiffening Products

Recently, a fellow tatter, (Gina) very genrously sent me a couple of stiffening products that she thought would help with my 3D projects.
She sent me two products, one a porcelain type that didn't really do the job, (too many problems), and one called "Perfect Sew".
The Perfect Sew was absolutely brilliant! It is a clear syruppy liquid, easy to use......just keep mopping up the stickly liquid that drains off.....and then it dries rock hard. It does not clog the picots at all and dries absolutely clear. I am very impressed indeed and will see if I can get a supply in the UK.
Thank you, Gina, for your tremendous generosity!

Pleasing outcome

My future DIL...for whom I made the bridal headdress and veil (nearly finished) is so thrilled that she has requested me to make a matching head band for her maid-of-honour.

I'm cock-a-hoop about this, because I like nothing better than a really good reason to make my 3D creations!

Will post a picture of the completed veil soon and then the new head band in the future.

Now must get the shuttles moving....busy, busy, busy! LOL