Motif 5: ENCHANTER-Inspired Heart

ENCHANTER-Inspired Heart (original design © 2010 Jon Yusoff)

This beautiful little heart flew off my shuttles today. It measures 1 5/8-inches wide by 1 3/8-inches tall (4.5 cm by 3.5 cm) and is tatted in Lizbeth® 20 Boysenberry Dark #644 and Flora 20 #238.

It was inspired by Jon Yusoff's ENCHANTER heart that was offered as a Valentine gift to the tatting community in February 2010.

As I emptied two shuttles of leftover thread (as tatters do) Jon Yusoff's "Enchanter" came to mind. Two minor modifications have been made to tweak the heart shape.

Profuse thanks to the versatile and talented Jon Yusoff whose elegant style and generous spirit have inspired us all since her tatting debut.

Her designs are unquestionable in their elegance and grace, and always a joy to tat. This design is no exception.  The modifications arose from playing around with starting points.  (...'if I start from HERE on the diagram, what would I have to do to climb out to round two?')

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A Trio of Tatted Crosses

In May I tatted three cross bookmarks from the marvelous pattern by Grace Tran: Jane's Bookmark Cross © 2013 Grace Tran

The first one, admittedly my favorite of the three, was gifted to Sister Mary Seton whose favorite color is purple. Tatted using Flora 20 #64 -- I just love how the dark purple falls at each end of the horizontal bars and the whites seem to stripe down the center.

Jane's Bookmark Cross
Tatted by IsDihara 2015

The cross measures three (3) inches in length (7.62 cm) and two (2) inches wide (5.08 cm). Grace Tan cleverly adapted Jane McClelland's bookmark pattern into a cross, which itself was adapted by Jane from a braid that appeared in the May 1984 Anna Burda magazine.

Isn't teamwork wonderful? The evolution story of this cross is quite good too. Without the Internet bringing these people together would this cross have been created?

Jane's Bookmark Cross

Tatted by IsDihara 2015

Crosses two and three (from top to bottom) were gifted to Sapling's Teacher Assistant and his Reading Resource Teacher.  Top one is tatted using Lizbeth® 20  Caribbean #122
and the bottom cross is tatted using Lizbeth® 20 Summer Fun #104.

So, I have been tatting, even though I haven't been blogging.  Keep the faith!

A Ribbon for Me? SQUEEEEEEEE!

2013 county fair results

Remember in December 2011 when Jon Yusoff first told us of Tatting Treasures Unearthed and began sharing her diagrams of Norma Benporath's lace patterns? Her announcement was the beginning of a tat-along wherein Lace Mats were made by tatters all over the globe.

It was great fun participating in the tat-along. Choosing the colors, creating the lace, marveling at 35 other magnificent mats and voting in the secret poll; all of it sheer delight.

Thank you, Jon, for hosting an event that resulted in my first county fair blue ribbon.

That's right, a blue ribbon! Squeee!

A closer look at the Lace Mat

Only two entries were submitted in the tatting category this year.  (There were five last year.) The other entry was a lovely oval doily done in needle tatting by my friend Sw4nkyL4c3r.

2013 county fair ribbon winner - tatting

I was stunned and nearly hyperventilated when I saw Sw4nkyL4c3r's doily with a red ribbon.  (I am not making this up.) So sure was I that hers was a shoe-in for the blue, that I froze, looking around for some other entry that wasn't there -- afraid to look at my own.  I was sure that if hers got a red, then mine surely received either white (third) or nothing at all.  It was only after I couldn't find any other entry that I peeked at mine.  Even then I didn't believe my eyes.

OK, enough of all that. I have since calmed down.

I demonstrated tatting at the county fair this past Sunday and here is a photo taken by a kind bystander.

IsDihara at the county fair
(Check out the sneak peek of charity wall hanging!)

The Tat Days charity project was sponsored by the Piedmont Palm Frond and I am so proud of the work we have done. This wall hanging is ADORABLE with its playful penguins frolicking on glacial ice. Lots of cute details to make all Tat Days participants say, "Awwwwwwwww!"

Please consider making a donation to the fund-raising auction, whether or not you are able to attend the tatting conference in Toccoa, GA.

Who Won?

Lace Mat Poll Winner Is....(I'm not telling)

If you haven't yet gone to see whose Norma Benporath Lace Mat received top honors in Jon Yusof's poll, what are you waiting for?

Thirty-five tatters submitted their lace mats for peer review and the poll results are posted. All in all, a great experience from start to finish!

Thank you, Jon, for giving us this opportunity to tat a fantastic Australian doily pattern from 1938.

More thank yous to all who participated in the Lace Mat Tat-Along and the Poll.

Finally (and most humbly), thank you to all who so kindly considered my lace mat for their top five votes. It was an exceedingly difficult choice.  All 35 entries were fabulous!

What?  You still haven't gone over to Tat-a-Renda to see who the winner is? OK, okay... the winner is none other than Martha Ess! *applause.applause.applause*

The mats that received the top 5 votes are listed on Tat-a-Renda blog as well. Go see!

A Star Shining in the East

Who out there is tatting Jon's latest offering, a lovely Johar Star?

It has been added to my Must Tat list, but I cannot start it right now.  Gingerbread Boy sits languishing unloved in my tatting corner. He has been thrown over for TIAS. I am certain he will require hours of therapy to recover from the emotional trauma.

Go Vote! Lace Mat Poll

Jon Yusoff has begun the Lace Mat Tatting Poll -- go vote for your top five!
(Please read the rules first, so you don't disqualify your votes by mistake.)

Lace Mat Poll Has Started

Lace Mat - Moving Right Along

Round four of Jon Yusof's Lace Mat Tat-Along is progressing.  Now that those long chains (round 3) are out of the way I am having more fun. And I am pleased with the color progression.

The trefoil bits are attached as I go. Doing it this way allowed me to keep tatting while waiting for the Lizbeth threads to arrive to the Handy Hands warehouse from China. 

Otherwise I would have tatted it all in one pass.

This mat is a bit of a challenge to photograph. The golds in the second image are more true-to-life but the lighter threads are overexposed. Zooming in on the same photo yielded the first image.

Here is a scan. 

Please pardon all the loose threads.  The ends are "hidden" but I tend to not trim them until I have done a final steam press and/or blocking. See how the colors look different in all three images?

I am tatting more on round four of the Lace Mat today instead of the Gingerbread Boy. Variety keeps me from getting too bored or frustrated.  Looking forward to sharing "tidied up" images.

À tout à l'heure, mes amies!

Fretting over Flop

Norma Benporath Lace Mat Tat-Along
Round 3 in progress

Having already griped over the liberal picots in this otherwise graceful design, I turn my attention to the really long chains in round three.

Nineteen tatters are listed on Jon's blog as participating in this tat-along.  Several of those tatters have already completed this project and posted their lovely results.

So why has no one mentioned their experiences tatting the long, floppy chains in round three? Surely I cannot be the only one to approach them with prejudice.

EDIT:  Oops, I stand corrected. Tat-ilicious Jess had a fair amount of success with tatting her chain stitches unflipped, using the second shuttle.  I will give that clever trick a try.

My dislike for long, floppy chains can be traced back to my participation in the 2009 Design_Tat online course. The class discussed my long floppy chains at length (see the picots?). It was a great learning experience.

Determined to overcome floppy chain syndrome, I reworked the assignment.  The "onion dome" shapes were lost in the process of retro-fitting stability into the design.

EDIT: Two bits of wisdom I took away from that particular lesson were "don't retro-fit stability into a design" and "designing takes patience and PERSEVERENCE."  I guess an unexpected thing I took away from that lesson was a (perhaps unhealthy?) dislike for long chains with regularly spaced picots.

Ever since, I have avoided long floppy chains, especially ones with lots of decorative picots.

But I digress!

If no one else was willing to tackle this issue, I was going to give it a try.  Substituting the Double Double Stitch didn't work because the resulting chain was too long. Adjusting the DDS stitch count was a bit problematic because of all those picots, so in the end I decided to just tat it as written and forget about stabilizing those floppy chains.

But I can't stand it. It is driving me crazy!

Those of you who have finished the doily, does your doily stand up to the flop test?

Gentle tatters, I ask for an open discussion of long, floppy chains.  Help me to learn how to use them advantageously and without prejudice.  Whaddya say? Will you weigh in on "flop?"

Motif #16 - Magic Moment Snowflake

Jon Yusoff's Magic Moment Snowflake
Heather the Tarnished Tatter asked me this past week what tatting was I working on? So let me show you my completed Magic Moment snowflake.

This snowflake will be #16 in my 25 Motif Challenge. It is tatted with size 40 Lizbeth #154 Wildflower Garden and used roughly 14 yards.

I just love how the natural floral colors play out and can't wait to pair it with matching or coordinating solids.

This colorway really does remind me of a wildflower garden. The only things missing are wee fairies flitting among the colorful petals.

Magic Moment Snowflake
wrapped around a satin egg.
Hee, hee, doesn't this look like a baby eggplant?
Here is a cute knit baby eggplant too.

Can't wait to get my hands on some of this Wildflower Garden in size 20 when it arrives in late December. It will be great for Easter projects.