Doilies under glass!

I thought I would show all you tatters what I do with most of my doilies.

I usually display them on my wooden furniture under glass. This protects both the tops of the furniture and the doilies!

Design-Tat Lesson 3

This is my contribution to the tatting design course of lesson 3. Sharon Briggs asked us to do the next row after giving us a pattern for the first row.

The one on the left is my first attempt which I was not satisfied with. Not enough stitches for it to lie properly. The one on the right sits much better and my aim was to give a lot of negative space to comply with Sharon's direction.

I haven't actually blocked the tatting yet and it will look better when I do!

Mother's Day Card

With Mother's Day coming up this Sunday I thought you would all like to see the card that I have made for my Mum. I have decorated it with roses as her name is Rose and her favourite colour is red. I have also used the wired clunies I posted about previously!

First Cluny Doily Completed

Well it's done! My first attempt at designing a doily incorporating clunies! Don't look too closely, the clunies at the end are quite a bit better than those at the start! But I have been bitten by the cluny bug - I am already in the process of using clunies in a new flower!

Iris Niebach's TIAS

This is my interpretation of Iris's Tat It And See (TIAS), I hope I have done it right! I think that I have got it and when the repeats are completed it will be a lovely doily! I am a little bit behind a lot of people as I have had to spend time in hospital this week and in too much pain to tat! But, thankfully, back in tatting action now!

Wiring the cluny

I have been asked by several tatters to give more information on how I wired the cluny, so here it is!

All I did was to lay a length (longer than the required length) of 24 gauge paper-coated green wire alongside the centre thread of the loom over my fingers, bending a section of it to hold in the pinch with the loom. It is a bit awkward at first until you get a couple of wraps completed and then it gets much easier. You simply weave the cluny in exactly the same way although, if using a shuttle like me, you have to make the weaving action more deliberate. You just have to take a little more care when closing the cluny, but it is done in exactly the same way. The only extra that I do is to straighten the wire again before drawing up the threads. I fix the end of the cluny, at both ends, with PVA craft glue, which secures the cluny from unwrapping and also making sure it adheres to the wire. I then snip the excess wire and bend it in any way to make the shape I want. Job done!

The thread I used for these clunies was quite a thick shiny rayon. Mine was from a Brasilian company called Circulo and the thread is "Susi" and comes in an array of fabulous colours. My supplier was from Ebay and she only had this one thickness, which is about the same as a size 10 crochet cotton, maybe even slightly thicker. It's too thick for most tatting projects but for these wired clunies it is aboslutely perfect!

Wired Clunies!

As many of you will know, my latest projects have been to include clunies. I have decided to enter the Ring of Tatters 2009 competition which is to design a card. My entry, of course, will remain a secret, but I thought I would share one little bit with you.

Cluny leaves look really stunning but I wanted my leaves to be wired and so I thought I would try to incorporate wire into the weaving of the cluny and hey presto! I have a wired cluny that I can bend into a natural leaf shape!

Birthday cake

Here is the little cake I did for my Mum's 82nd birthday. I took it to the residential home, where she now resides, so that she could share it with her new pals!

Carla's Basket of Flowers

Carla sent me a picture of a basket of flowers using one of my flower patterns. Isn't colour combination striking?!

Progression on the Cluny Doily!

This is the story so far. I am simply making it up as I go along. It is quite slow growing as the thread is only size 80, but I like the delicateness of the overall look. I think one, or maybe two more rounds, will be enough to complete this doily.

Queen Anne's Lace PDF

I now have a PDF of the Queen Anne's Lace pattern that is one of the flowers in my ebook Summer Collection of Tatted Flowers. The reason that I have done an individual PDF of this pattern is that it is made up entirely of daisy picots and quite a few tatters have expressed a desire to perfect this technique.

There is a picture of the flower here and if you would like a free copy of the PDF simply email me.

First Foray Into Cluny Design!

As the title suggests, this is my first attempt at trying to design a motif incorporating clunies. When I saw how fabulous Elisadusud's cluny tatting was I knew I had to master this technique! I had tried clunies in the past and managed to "create" a passable example but seeing Elisa's I knew that I had to bite the bullet and get some proper practice in.

After several trial runs I started my motif and by the time I had done my second round of clunies I found that I was really getting to grips with them. I occassionally find that the centre warp thread becomes irritatingly loose and can't seem to understand why, but then I will do another couple without any problem at all.

Ah well, as I have told many of my students in the past, it just takes practice, practic, pratice!

Apple Blossom Birthday Card

I have made the apple blossom design into a birthday card for my mum. As many of you now, she has been very poorly recently and so I thought I would make an extra special card for her big day (82 years young!) on 16th February. At last she is recovering from her double pneumonia and is now spending time in a beautiful residential home that she says is absolutely wonderful! You deserve nothing but the best, Mum!

A Touch Of Spring! (sigh)

Here is the completed Apple Blossom. Doesn't it make you wish Spring was just around the corner, especially as we here in the UK have just had the heaviest snowfall for 18 years!!!

4 steps to perfection!

I thought everyone would like to see my progression of designing my next 3D flower - the apple blossom! I started with an idea of using double double stitches and using Pamela Myers' Apple Blossom HDT in size 20. As you can see it took me 4 attempts to achieve the shape I was looking for, but I am now happy with the flower shape. My next job will be to create a twig!