First Draft: Garden Cross

I'm really trying to keep up with the Stawasz Mega Doily, but I've been so busy these past couple of weeks that I haven't had any time for tatting. And then I had another designing withdrawal, and just had to create something. Designing is more relaxing for me than tatting from a pattern. There are no mistakes to be made because there's no written pattern to follow. Instead, I can cut, tie, make adjustments, tat sloppily, and pretty much do whatever I want. In the end, all the experiments provide useful information for creating a final copy.

Here is my first draft of a design I drew up many months ago. I've only now gotten around to attempting to tat it:

(The finished version of this pattern can now be found in my Etsy shop)

Right now it's crooked and needs a lot more work. I've already written down a bunch of adjustments and will be making many versions of this cross until I find one that I'm satisfied with. That could take a while, but hopefully not too long.

Another nice thing about designing is that executing a pattern is a lot easier when you are the person who came up with it. No guess work at what someone was going for when they made the piece, everything is already in your head. Surprisingly enough, I managed to mess up the above cross more than once...I was getting confused at my own pattern! That's never happened before, so I think that's a sign that this is a tricky sequence to follow.

Anyhow, here is the drawing I am using as a guide to creating this pattern:

I hope to have a more presentable tatted version in the next week or so.