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Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Small Mat

I've been seeing fewer complaints on the Etsy forums about payment processing issues, so I think it's mostly been fixed (though the occasional issue pops up now and again).

A few days ago, I finished this small mat in DMC size 80 thread. This is a continuation of the triangles theme that I have been blogging about (see my previous post for more). This mat could be made much larger, but I just wanted a sample to place into my tatting binder. Here it is with an antique rubber tatting shuttle for scale:


Before I begin designing, I always need a visual reference. For this mat, I needed to find a pathway that would allow me to complete it in one pass and maintain symmetry on both sides. Using my iPad, I began by taking a photo of the small strip of triangles from my previous blog post:


I used an app called PhotoGrid to make a rough "collage" of the tatting, and another app called You Doodle to draw around the edges and polish up the shape of the mat. Here is the resulting image:


From here I continued using the You Doodle app to draw a path through the maze of triangles:


This maze was a little more tricky than normal, as I wanted to maintain symmetry on both sides of the mat and complete it in one pass. If I didn't care about symmetry, I could have simply snaked back and forth, back and forth.

I experimented more with the above pathway, and found that it can be repeated indefinitely. So, if you have a lot of patience, you could make an entire tablecloth this way, only stopping to reload your shuttles when you run out of thread:


On another note, for those who remember the stray cat from my previous post, here is Mama Cat with her four kittens:


They are getting a lot bigger now. Right after I snapped this photo, the black kitten saw me and got really spooked. So I've been trying to leave them alone :)

5 comments:

God's Kid said...

Your mat is totally awesome!!! :)

Jane McLellan said...

The mat may be small but involved a lot of work. Clever to use the computer to substitute for the work in a bigger piece!

Lace-lovin' Librarian ~ Diane said...

I'm amazed at what you're able to accomplish with your iPad. I'll have to check out You Doodle. Maybe I can accomplish something worthwhile some day!

Margarets designer cards said...

What a wonderful use of the iPad, and clever how you worked out how to produce a gorgeous mat in one pass,
Lovely cats, I am sure mama cat is pleased you help her feed such a growing family.

Linda said...

Lovely work and the cats are gorgeous! :)