Little Square: Phase 2

The second phase of this pattern involves connecting four squares together. It's a way to make sure the squares are repeatable, and it also gives me a good base to work with for the next step:

The next step will be more difficult, and involves redesigning part of the pattern.

So far, no one has guessed my exact intentions for this pattern. I have received guesses of a mat, a square doily, a tablecloth, and a box. While it can be made into all of those things, the purpose of this pattern is a little bit different.

All will be revealed in my next post, which should be ready early next week. You are welcome to keep guessing though!

Little Square

A little square, but I have bigger plans for it. Can you guess?

More on that later this week...

Big and Small

Just a couple more snowflakes, one big and one small. These are both tatted in Lizbeth size 20 thread and the designs are loosely based on each other.

I meant to have a blog post about sizing a picot gauge for central beads, but didn't realize how much information I had to go through. I still need to finish that up and try to make it more concise and readable.

Yesterday I received a question about whether I had my blog tutorials in PDF format. There's actually a website that will convert any blog post into a PDF file, and I thought I'd share that here as it might be useful to some.

To convert a blog post into a PDF, go to https://www.printfriendly.com/ and copy paste the URL of the specific post you would like to convert. After you have done that, you can click on the button that says "print preview" and it will take you to a page where you can make small edits and also save the file as a PDF.

Edit: Margaret brought up a good point in the comments below. You can also copy paste an entire blog post into something like Microsoft Word or Pages and export the PDF from there.

Don't forget there is also another PDF website called https://smallpdf.com/ where you can combine multiple PDF files into one large file, split them up, and make other conversions. Both websites are free, but smallpdf.com limits you to two files per hour (if I'm remembering correctly). Anyhow, they are both really useful and are worth checking out.

Little flakes and stars

I'm still tatting snowflakes, and I've added a few small stars to the mix:

I've been testing out different beaded centers with the flakes, and have come up with a formula for calculating the picot gauge needed when using size 20 thread. The picot gauge is used with Frivole's method for adding beads, which you can view by clicking here. Hopefully I'll have more about that next week.

These snowflakes and stars are inspired by one of my earlier designs. I had the idea to create snowflake pairs that consist of one small and one large version, both using similar design elements. In this case, both designs feature outward facing clovers tatted in two rounds:

The small snowflake and star are tatted in Lizbeth size 20 thread while the large snowflake and star are tatted in size 40. I have several other design pairs drawn, and I hope to tat them over the next few months. Part of my goal with this project is to create snowflakes that are suitable for both small and large threads.

To draft these designs, I've been using the Amaziograph app that I blogged about earlier. Here is the sketch of the small snowflake from today's post:

I'm really pleased with this app and can get lost in it for hours. I think it's a great way to visualize a design before attempting to tat it.