Sunday, September 26, 2010

Snowflakes

My scanner is here and I'm back in business.  Another learning curve involved, however, and one I have not had a lot of time to explore as school, work, and high school football season are in full swing. I'm not quite getting the results I want yet.

I am currently enjoying my pdf copy of Jon Yusoff's "Tatted Snowflakes Collection."  Tatted snowflakes have been around about as long as tatting itself - so you'd think we'd run out of really different and unique patterns.  Not so with Jon's book, predominantly because of the use of more "modern" tatting techniques like the use of two shuttles and split and mock rings.  Here is the first one I tatted, "Alladin."


I think the thread is "Treebeard" by Lady Shuttlemaker (I really should label my thread better).  I plan on making this into a necklace eventually, probably by adding a tatted/beaded chain of some sort.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

A Shuttle to Tat - Resurrecting an Old Pattern

I saw this really cool idea of Chris Hinton's to suspend a tatted motif in epoxy in order to create a shuttle with it - the important links are here (forum) and here (shop).

That reminded me I had designed a shuttle pattern way back in 1998 (I hadn't tatted this pattern in a while and had kind of forgotten about it). As I remember, back when the Tat Chat group was in existence we were trying to come up with a pattern for a "tatted shuttle" and this was my contribution.  I reworked the pattern slightly since then and have posted it here.  If you are interested in getting one of those cool shuttles and would like to use this pattern for your tatting, feel free.  There are also other  shuttle-shaped patterns available on their site.


Two shuttles, wound in the continuous thread method.  I use the method of front side/back side tatting.  In size 80 thread, the motif measures 2" x 1".

Pattern Key:
R          ring
Ch        chain
p           picot
+           joining picot
vsp       very small picot
lp          long picot
RW      reverse work

Shuttle #1
Cloverleaf
R1  6 p 4 p 2.
R2  2 + (to last p of previous ring) 6 vsp 2 lp 2 vsp 6 p 2.
R3  2 + (to last p of previous ring) 4 vsp 6. RW.

Ch 2 p 2 p 2 p 2 p 2 p 2 p 2 p 2 p 2 p 2. RW.

Cloverleaf
R4  6 + (to last vsp of R3) 4 p 2.
R5  2 + (to last p of previous ring) 6 + (to 2nd vsp of R2) 2 + (to lp of R2) 2 vsp 6 p 2.
R6  2 + (to last p of previous ring) 4 p 6. RW.

Ch 2 + (to p of previous chain) 2 p 2 p 2 p 2 p 2. RW.
R7  3 vsp 3. RW.
Ch 2 p 2 p 2 p 2 p 2 p 3. RW.
Cloverleaf
R8  3 p 2 p 2.
R9  2 + (to last p of previous ring) 3 + (to vsp of R7) 3 + (to 2nd p of R6) 2 p 2 p 3 vsp 3 p 2.
R10  2 + (to last p of previous ring) 2 p 3. RW.
Shuttle #2 
R11  3 + (to p of previous chain) 12 p 12 p 3. Do not RW.

Shuttle #1
Ch 3 + (to last p of previous R) 2 p 2 p 2 p 2 p 2. RW.
R12  3 + (to 2nd vsp of R9). RW.
Ch 2 p 2 p 2 p 2 p 2 p 2. RW.
Cloverleaf
R13  6 + (to 5th p of R9) 4 p 2.
R14  2 + (to last p of previous ring) 6 + (to 2nd vsp of R5) 2 + (to lp of R2) 2 vsp 6 p 2.
R15  2 + (to last p of previous ring) 4 vsp 6. RW.

Ch 2 + (to p of previous chain) 2 p 2 p 2 p 2 p 2 p 2 p 2 p 2 p 2. RW.

Cloverleaf
R16  6 + (to last p of previous R) 4 p 2.
R17  2 + (to last p of previous ring) 6 + (to 2nd vsp of R14) 2 + (to lp of R2) 2 +(to 1st vsp of R2) 6 p 2.
R18  2 + (to last p of previous ring) 4 p 6. RW.

Ch 2 + (to p of previous chain) 2 p 2 p 2 p 2 p 2. RW.
R19  3 vsp 3. RW.
Ch 2 p 2 p 2 p 2 p 2 p 3. RW.

Cloverleaf
R20  3 p 2 p 2.
R21  2 + (to last p of previous ring) 3 + (to vsp of R19) 3 + (to last p of R18) 2 p 2 + (to 1st p 0f R1) 3 vsp 3 p 2.
R22  2 + (to last p of previous ring) 2 p 3. RW.

Shuttle #2 
R23  3 + (to p of previous chain) 12 p 12 p 3. Do not RW.

Shuttle #1
Ch 3 + (to last p of previous R) 2 p 2 p 2 p 2 p 2. RW.
R24  3 + (to 2nd vsp of R21). RW.
Ch 2 p 2 p 2 p 2 p 2 + (to 1st p of the 1st Ch) 2.  Tie off ends at base of first cloverleaf.

Monday, September 6, 2010

Nothing New to Report (Tatting-wise, anyway)

I have no tatting to share because I have been very busy - my in-laws are up from Florida for a visit, I started school again, and I bought a new laptop.  My Dell laptop turned 4 years old this month and it was time to lay it to rest.  It has served me well but got quite cranky over the last six months or so and I was trying to decide whether I wanted to just wipe the whole thing by reinstalling Windows again (for the forth time), or go ahead and upgrade.  Plus the battery gave out about a year ago and so it has to be plugged in all the time. Kind of a pain for a laptop.

I shopped around and decided to go with an Acer Aspire.  I had some specific items I was looking for - namely, a keypad as part of the keyboard (for my bookkeeping and accounting), a power plug that doesn't stick out of the laptop by 3 inches (I will never understand why all laptops are not equipped with an elbow power cord.  I killed my previous Dell because the thing stuck out so far it kept getting bumped.  I mean, isn't the point of a laptop it gets moved around a lot and so you don't want things sticking out in all directions??   - but I digress.), and a nice large screen and good sound system because I watch a lot of movies and TV shows on my laptop while I am tatting.  The Acer has Dolby Virtual Surround Sound (really, really nice) and a 17.3" screen.  The Acer had all the things I wanted at a really good price.

So I spent this past week moving things over from my Dell.  I did manage to disable the Acer's DVD player twice, once because I installed a software program that was not compatible with Windows 7, and again when I tried to install my 7-year-old scanner - also not Windows 7 compatible.  Why it chooses to disable the DVD player I have no idea.  With the software glitch I was able to use a system restore point to go back, but the scanner killed the system restore too and I spent three hours surfing the web trying to find a solution that didn't involve resetting the entire computer back to factory standards - after I'd already moved over all of my data - and I finally found it on Microsoft's own website.  I had to go in a edit the registry but it's all working again now and I'm in the market for a new scanner.

I love the laptop so far; Windows 7 of course has given me some trouble but changing operating systems after four years always involves a learning curve.  Once I get a new scanner then I will be back up and running and able to scan some more of my tatting to share.