Tatting Tea Tuesday

Today is definitely a chocolate Tatting Tea Tuesday.

Hot, humid & hazy is the forecast for my little corner of tat land. Near perfect conditions for killing fair-skinned folk like me. So I have to curb the urge to take TTT outdoors.

Here's a crazy idea! Gear up with night vision goggles to tat away into the wee hours. Ha ha! Now why didn't I think of that earlier?

All kidding aside, I am "geared up" with Dove milk chocolate hearts, a double-sized mug of chocolate chai and a wicked sharp pencil to sketch out ideas for my latest design experiment.

For a change of pace I worked around Birgit Phelp's 2003 SweetHeart counter clockwise this time, using lock joins instead of picot joins.

How to work around the bottom point is my current dilemma. Birgit's heart offers only one picot-joining option.

This is where a digital drawing program would come in handy. Looking forward to covering that topic in the Design-Tat course, but until that day arrives Mr. Pointy and I remain fast friends.

Wishing you all blissful me time to create something beautiful.

See you next Tuesday for more communi-tea!

Pink and White Edging

A few of you have asked about the pink and white edging I photographed two weeks ago for Tatting Tea Tuesday. It was a yardage pattern my grandmother used to make in ecru tatting cotton. Unfortunately when I tried to scan one of her ecru samples, portions of it disintegrated.

It is a classic and several pattern books include it, albeit with slight variations. I can't show them to you due to copyright restrictions. But I can tell you where you can find them, so check your pattern books for these titles:

The July-August 1998 issue of Flower & Garden magazine, the Crafts Edition, shows this pattern on page 44 in silver to decorate a pretty barrette. The Rings & Chains bookmark on page 46 also uses this pattern and they even tatted their sample in pink and white.

Tatting - A Potpourri of Patterns, published by Handy Hands Publications, is made up of unabridged republications of both complete and partial works dating back to 1916 and 1861. An unabridged reprint of a section of tatting from 1843 is also included. (Just thought I would mention it for the archival pattern buffs out there.) Page 33 includes this edging, marked as Edging No. 77, and notes that it makes a lovely insertion for a library table runner in two shades of brown.

Traditional Tatting Patterns edited by Rita Weiss shows it on page 41 used to trim a tray mat. The variation is a 4DS straight chain added before and after the curved chains. Plus each chain has three decorative picots (not graduated) evenly spaced on the chain.

J.P. Coats and Clark's Tatting Book No. 229 (originally 10¢) includes the exact same tray mat page on page 20.

Christmas Angels and Other Tatting Patterns by Monica Hahn shows it on page 26 to create a cross bookmark. This version also uses three decorative picots (not graduated) on each chain, and they are clustered at the apex of the curve. Very pretty!

Gun Blomqvist and Elwy Persson share their cross bookmark on page 72 of Tatting Patterns and Designs. They add more pretty picots to their chains and a chain cord.

Ann Orr's Classic Tatting Patterns, published by Dover Publications, Inc. (ISBN 0-486-24897-6) uses this pattern in rows 5 and 7 of the large, rectangular doily in their luncheon set.

Tatting Patterns by Mary Konior includes an interesting twist on this theme on page 28 (photo on page 29) called "interlocking clovers." The chains have four picots (again, not graduated).

Tatting Doilies & Edgings edited by Rita Weiss includes two interesting twists on this theme in their section titled, "Edgings for all Occasions" on page 23.

The first is the interlocking clovers version again. The chains have three decorative picots (again, not graduated) for easy stitching onto a handkerchief.

The second is the four-ring clover edging, but with the rings and chains reversed. Imagine the pink chains on the inside and the two white rings on either side.

Whew! That was a lot of references. Hoping one of these books is already in your tatting library.

Have I made up for being gone last week? I hope so, because all this typing has worn me out. Need. More. Chocolate Tea. ☺

A tout à l'heure, mes amis!