Floral Bookmark Tatting Pattern – Response

Image Copyright Floral Bookmark Tatting Pattern
Original image of bookmark, borrowed from pattern

I recently joined some tatting groups on Facebook, and have been endlessly inspired since doing so. One person posted that they’d created some bracelets out of bookmark patterns, and I thought this was an excellent idea. I’ve been trying to tat a couple of difficult patterns this week, and wanted a break from the frustrations of not producing quite what I was aiming for.

So, I picked up my navy blue DMC Cotton Pearl thread size 8 and rummaged about online until I found a free pattern I could interpret relatively easily, to practice on. I came across this “ancient” (for the web), blog (in HTML format no less – no comments!) pattern: Floral Bookmark Tatting Pattern and got to tatting.

I quickly realised something was amiss on the pattern. It seems a line is missing: in between the Small Ring and the Large Ring, one must insert another chain of 4 p 3 p 3 p 4, rw.

And, when you’re closing the end of the bookmark, and turning back around? There’s some instructions missing there, too. I learned the hard way – lost an hour to unpicking the large ring (of course), not once – but twice. So, here’s how you avoid that: on the 4th (and final) large ring, in place of making the third picot, join the to the first large ring’s third picot. Then, on the following small ring, instead of making the last picot, join to the first large ring’s last available picot.

Just wanted to note this here, since the page doesn’t have a comments (or even feedback) section (I can’t even find who originally posted the page!), in case anyone ever comes across it and wonders why their first half-flower isn’t quite flat – and is more round than it should be!

My Floral Tatted Bookmarklet
My Floral Tatted Bookmarklet, in Navy Size 8 DMC Pearl Cotton

And now that I compare this image of my tatting to the original pattern’s, I’ve realised I forgot to join the adjacent picots on either side of the chains of 8 stitches that join each flower, which at least partially explains why this won’t work so well as a bracelet – when I placed it around my wrist, I realised the tension is too focused down the centre of the tatting, and so the sides fold up slightly. I am not certain if ironing, starching or blocking will help with this – does one starch tatted jewellery that will wrap around one’s skin? I wouldn’t think so. Additionally, I wonder whether the tension added by joining the adjacent picots on either side of the bridging chains of 8 will add provide the structure to prevent the curling that happens now. I shall have to try again, I suppose. I was hoping to bead my second attempt. I’m not sure if it will be worth it, if it will simply be another experiment. I’m sure beading it will also change the structure and tension, so it’s probably worth it either way. I’ll have to ponder this some.

Where to buy tatting thread in Ontario

[Edit: July 18, 2016]

I’ve just launched my online shop for needlecrafts enthusiasts, selling pearl cotton, tatting needles, embroidery needles, crochet hooks and more, to customers in Ontario, across Canada, the United States, into the United Kingdom, and across Europe, as well as worldwide. Check it out at Artisanthropy.ca. Payment is accepted via MasterCard, Visa and Paypal. I did my best to keep shipping prices as low as possible, as well as prices on the actual thread. Hopefully in future I’ll be able to offer free shipping options, but for now I charge at-cost to keep things as fair as possible. I really hope you enjoy the selection of pearl cotton yarns I’ve got there!

Artisanthropy - Canada's quality artisanal supply store

Bronwyn – finally

After just over 3 years, in March of 2015, I finally, finally finished my Bronwyn shawl (pattern). It had been sitting around, completely knit, for a very long time – I just needed to sew in the ribbon. So sew in the ribbon I finally did, and then I pulled my hubby outside for a quick photo shoot. Despite the snow, it was actually not that cold that day – -5 was quite balmy after the typical -30 to -40 temperatures featured by Mother Nature last winter.

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This is the shawl for which I made the Susie Rogers’ Reading Mitts, also modeled in the photos above. My Sunda Warmers also managed to make the shoot, due to their colour (and the cold). I suppose this is one advantage to always buying the same colour yarn!

Tatting

Looking back at the lack of posts over the last little while, I realise I have a lot of catching up to do. I came close to finishing a number of knitting projects this year, and should post about them as a sort of post-mortem, at the very least.

In any case, this past week I’ve been fervently tatting. I don’t know what exactly sparked this latest craze in my mind, but I must have seen something on a forum or Facebook group somewhere and remembered that I had wanted to learn how to tat. Now’s the perfect time…

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I decided it would be nice to try to make as many tatted snowflakes as possible and send them to family members who have unfailingly sent me Christmas cards, and presents, throughout the years, despite my very delinquent behaviour in return. So far, I’ve made three – the first of which was such a monumental failure, I refused to dispatch it to anyone, and the other two of which were sent off, the latest today.

For some reason, I’m finding tatting extremely addictive – much more so than knitting. It’s far, far easier to fix mistakes – as frustrating as it is to sit there unpicking stitches for 30 minutes – that’s still much less time than it takes to go back on a knitting project! And the turn-around time for these projects is no more than 3 evenings of a few hours here and there – compared with the months and months that goes by in between each time I’m able to pick up the knitting needles, figure out where I left off, and continue. And finally, the result is just so satisfying! It’s intricate, detailed, beautiful… and each one is better than the last.

Time for Change

It’s time to make some changes around here. I’ve decided to remove my Etsy shop, at least for the time-being, because the sales over there simply weren’t even covering the fees I was having to pay to maintain the listings. I’m really not into wasting cash, so – that’s done for now. I think, in future, despite Etsy having a great searchable marketplace, in order to avoid rent fees for being in it, I’ll open my own shop on this site. But for now, I need to spend some time developing new products, and exploring the craft. I haven’t had time to do much more than design / scribble and think about what I’m going to produce next, and that has to change. I can’t post anything new and mind-blowing if I’m not even spending any time producing!

In other news, I now have a home studio. It looks like a bomb’s gone off inside of it, so that’s just one more thing on the list to sort out – once I have some time. But I’ve got a fantastic workspace: a large, heavyweight desk that holds both my serger and sewing machine; a wonderful bust that must harken from the 50s or 60s; and loads of wall shelf space, thanks to a handy-dandy hubby. I also picked myself up a neat little clothing rack from Ikea, and some fancy-looking hangers to hang my finished projects on for photographing purposes.

In the works is a plan to re-jig some of my many websites. I’m planning to re-file my past crafty ramblings from another blog into this one, and then turn that domain into something else entirely… lots of IA needs to happen, and right now I’m considering how all the pieces will fit together. This is important to me because it’ll allow me to re-focus all my projects (both real-world and cyber) and get moving on them again. They’ve all been laying stagnant for far, far too long.

So here’s to renewals in the middle of the year. Gotta love summertime motivation!

Haute Revel Scarves to be sold at local Christmas Craft Sale in Oxford Mills, Ontario

Haute Revel Scarf in GrapeHey y’all! I’ve been super busy working up some chain stitch, crochet scarves out of some spare skeins of my Mambo ruffle yarn I had laying around for sale at my *drumroll please* first craft show – the “Spirit of Christmas” Craft Sale in Oxford Mills, happening this weekend, Dec. 6th, from 10am – 5pm, about a 45 min drive from Ottawa. Definitely check out the event, and look out for my mom, who will be selling my scarves and her own funky, punky, Steampunk jewelry. Tip: the scarves are discounted for this event only!
Christmas Craft Sale in Oxford Mills, Ontario

FO: Zebra Tulle Ruffle Skirt

I have been wanting to create this skirt since I saw the tulle yarns CanadaYarns.ca offers. This used 2 skeins, though I may add on a second pack of 2, simply because it’s very short. I used my ruffle skirt pattern for this skirt, slightly modified – I increased by 4 stitches throughout the body of the skirt, evenly on each row. A bit complex, but it worked out in the end. Took me a while to finish up the waistband, not really sure I was mental-blocking on that! But finally got over it, so that’s good.

1-skein Fingering 4-Ply Knitting Project Ideas

I recently picked up a few beautiful new yarns on a yarn crawl, which I will post about soon [edit: May 13, 2015: finally published the post about the yarn crawl here]. But for now, I just wanted to take some notes on potential patterns for these yarns, as I’m pretty excited about them!

Araucania Botany Lace

Araucania Botany Lace

450.0 yards – 1 skein

Potential patterns:

 

 

 Cascade Yarns Heritage Silk Paints

Cascade Yarns Heritage Silk Paints

437 yards – 1 skein

Potential patterns:

 

Handmaiden Fine Yarn Rumple

Handmaiden Fine Yarn Rumple

328 yards – 1 skein

Potential patterns:

Saved Rav search for these patterns.

Years in Review: 2010-2014 Knitting Adventures

I first picked up the sticks in about January of 2010, but I only began logging my knitting progress on February 9th, 2010, in my first post at Knitravel: Knitters Delight.

4 years later, I’ve decided to do an anniversary look-back at my annual posts around this time for the past 4 years, as a way to track my progress with this hobby.

In Knitters Delight, I was trying out a legwarmer pattern. I had so much difficulty keeping that pattern straight, I gave up on it and never finished the pattern. Looking back, this is amusing to me now, because it was so freaking easy, but I had so much trouble with it! I would knit a few rows, find a dropped stitch, flip out in complete exasperation, undo my work, and try again – and repeat. Highly frustrating. Not to mention, the yarn I bought was the cheapest yarn I could find (as, when I arrived at the knitting shop the first time, I was absolutely floored by how ridiculously expensive most yarns were – I’ve since come to accept the high costs involved in this hobby!), and therefore extremely unpleasant to work with, especially with my dry, cracked hands caused by our skin-destroying Canadian winters and North American diets.

Apparently, I only published 3 posts in 2010. I suppose I didn’t do too well that year, and mainly concentrated on learning the craft, rather than writing about it.

My first post around this time in 2011, was from March 28 – reviewing my Coachella. I was semi-satisfied with the result of that project – the final piece looks fantastic on its own, but doesn’t quite fit the way I wanted it to. It tends to slump – it’s basically just slightly too large in the middle front. Maybe I’ll grow into it… 😛 Stitch-wise, there doesn’t seem to be any mistakes in it, and I loved the yarn – it feels just like suede, as it’s meant to! And the colours are two of my favourites – teal and berry.

Fast-forward another year, the beginning of my 3rd, to Febuary 10th, 2012, and we have the photo shoot of the first item I knit from a pattern I designed / created from scratch: Sundae Warmer Photo Shoot. At this point, I was finding knitting to be a total breeze – I was even so bored with just knitting other people’s patterns, I started to create my own. And while this one is really basic, it gave me the confidence to begin something a little more complex: namely, an adult version of the ruffle yarn skirts I see all over the place for babies.Why should babies have all the fun!

And, at the beginning of my 4th year of knitting, on February 14, 2013, I was so confident with knitting, I decided to begin some experiments – and posted about Felting Experiment #1: Freeform Desert Throw.

Finally, at the beginning of my 5th year of knitting, I started off with quite the slew of finished projects – which bodes well for the coming year. I look forward to coming up with new designs for my Etsy shop, nailing down a few more pattern PDFs, and working on building up my knitting skills – not to mention launching my yarn shop, yarn crawl hotel bookings, and – finally – releasing my Android Ravelry knitting app, KnitKapp.

There’s something about even-numbered years – I just like numbers divisible by 2. Some kind of harmony to them, I suppose. Odd numbers just seem… so odd! So 2014? It’s going to be an AWESOME year. I won’t let it be any other way!