Tatted coaster patterns are in the shop

Just a quick post today to let everyone know that the tatted coaster patterns are finally available in my Etsy shop. You can get to the listing by clicking here or on the Etsy icon on the right side of my blog.

The PDF file is 22 pages long, and contains full written instructions and diagrams for each pattern. The following seven patterns are included in the pack:

Rosette Coaster

Rosette Coaster (Variation)

Square Coaster

Kaleidoscope Coaster

Victorian Coaster

Floral Coaster: Five Petals (split ring and regular ring versions)

Floral Coaster: Six Petals (split ring and regular ring versions)

Testers: If you did not receive the full pattern pack from me within the past couple of weeks, please let me know. I've had a lot of emails going in and out and it can be tricky to keep track of them all.

I keep thinking that I should take a break, but I've already found myself drawing up a bunch of new snowflake designs. I'd really love to try putting a few Swarovski crystals into them, just like Joëlle uses in her Bentley pattern.

Taking an idea from Ninetta

I've spent the past few weeks fixing up the five petaled version of my floral coasters so that they can be tatted using either regular rings or split rings. Just like the six petaled version I talked about a few weeks ago, these needed some minor changes to make everything fit.

As I was looking over my written instructions, I thought that it would be neat to incorporate something I regularly see Ninetta use. If you take a look at any of her posts with patterns in them, you will see that she includes little drawings of shuttle and ball thread. These symbolize what is needed when tatting each pattern.

I drew up my own version using Inkscape and have been adding these little symbols to each round of my tatting instructions.

Hope you don't mind, Ninetta!


Update: Muskaan wanted to know if anyone would share the sketches. I've just updated my Free Diagramming Template to include the shuttle and ball drawings. Click here to access the new file (you must have Inkscape to open it). Please note that the sketches are not visible in the preview window, but will show up to the right of the page if you open it in Inkscape and zoom out. Objects have been grouped so you will need to ungroup them if you'd like to make edits.

For those of you who import photos into other programs (such as Word or iBooks Author) you can save the following images to your computer:

One Shuttle

Two Shuttles (disconnected)

Two Shuttles (connected)

Shuttle and Ball (disconnected)

Shuttle and Ball (connected)

Looks can be deceiving

Take a look at this design. It looks simple, right? A flower in the middle, a round of rings and chains, and a series of flowers along the outer edge:

That's what I thought too, until I got stuck in a loop trying to make it work. Would you believe me if I told you that this is the most challenging pattern I have designed so far? Now, don't get me wrong, it's very straightforward to tat. But to design the thing, that's an entirely different ball game...

I began by referencing my binder of tatted samples to find a six ringed flower that would work. In general, a six ringed flower can be made by using the same stitch count four times, separated by three picots:

Some are more cumbersome to make than others because the rings are too small or too large to be tatted comfortably. That leaves three usable options: 4-4-4-4, 5-5-5-5, or 6-6-6-6.

Since I wanted to tat a coaster, I didn't have complete freedom in my choice. I needed to pick something that would work out to be the same size as a coaster, so I went with the middle option of 5-5-5-5.

I quickly learned that designing in the traditional way (from the center on out) would be incredibly time consuming. In my first attempt, the outer round was cupping badly. I was forced to increase the flowers to 6-6-6-6, and to stretch them to make everything lay flat.

I had an idea: If I designed everything backwards, I would save myself from having to cut off the outer round when things didn't work out. Instead, I could cut and rework the inner rounds, which took far less time to tat.

This got me closer to my goal, but I was still unhappy with the fact that such a small coaster had so many rounds (four to be exact).

I decided to try another version with smaller flowers, this time using the 4-4-4-4 stitch count. This is when another limitation of the design became evident. Since the first round started with six sides, I needed to continue using multiples of six throughout the coaster. This left me with the choice of 12, 18, or 24 flowers for the outer round (anything else would have been far too large). So, I tatted a version with 12 small flowers and a version with 18 small flowers:

Using a coaster that I purchased at a local craft fair for comparison, I noticed that my first attempt was too small and my second attempt was too large! What I did like about the small coaster was that it could be completed in three rounds instead of four. I would use this idea in the next phase of my design.

About a month went by before I decided to pick up the pattern again. This time, I used my original stitch count of 5-5-5-5 for the flowers, and reduced the coaster to three rounds. I started doing something a little differently though, which introduced a new problem. Instead of counting the join as the first half of the next stitch, I began to create full double stitches after each join. I noticed that my flowers wanted to close after five petals instead of six, and that I had to squeeze in a sixth petal each time.

The lack of room for a sixth petal occurred because I was using split rings to travel from one flower to the next. Split rings can distort the shape of the tatting, and in this case, they caused the center of each flower to become crowded.

Notice the difference in the photo below. The flower on the bottom has a split ring which acts like a balloon, pushing out the center and distorting the shape. The flower on the top is made with regular rings.

To remedy this, I had to use a stitch count that would normally create a flower with seven petals. Using a count of 5-4-4-5 works as a six ringed flower, just as long as you make a full double stitch after every join (or use a split ring to climb from one flower to the next):

While designing this coaster, another thought continually resurfaced: "What if someone wants to tat the coaster without split rings?" I needed to give it a try to make sure that it would work. Sometimes a concept that is completely feasible becomes far less possible when put into action. This was one of those times.

What I discovered is that flowers with regular rings are ever so slightly larger than those with split rings. (I'm not sure why other than to tell you that I measured it myself!) In addition, flowers with regular rings are joined to each other more loosely (through joining picots) while flowers with split rings are joined to each other more tightly (unless you create mock picots to counter this).

The larger size and looser join between non-split ring flowers creates an increase in circumference. This increase will ruffle the outer round if no other changes are made. And because I'm obsessive about things laying flat, I just had to change Round 2 to make everything work.

In the end, I came up with two versions of the same coaster. The yellow and green version has split rings to travel from one flower to the next. The pink and green version has 12 separate flowers in Round 3, each made with regular rings. The difference is a little hard to see in the photo, but the pink version has longer chains in Round 2, making it slightly larger than the yellow version.

After all was said and done I was left with a pile of completed coasters, each a little bit different from the last:

Here is another view, 14 attempts in all (not counting the incomplete scraps that never made it to full coasters):

So, can you see? Looks can be deceiving.

Still finishing up

After looking at all of the coasters laid out on the table, I realized that there was a variation that had not been represented in my pattern pack. So I tatted a sample, wrote down the pattern, and tested it.

Now, instead of six coasters there will be seven. I'm still putting everything together and have a few things to finish up. Just wanted to make a blog post this week so that there wouldn't be several weeks of silence!

A table full of coasters

I guess it's bound to happen when preparing a pattern pack.

Two more designs to write out and test, and I will be glad when I'm done!

The Final 6

If you've been following my blog, you may have noticed that I've been spending a lot of time designing coasters. I've finally narrowed it down to six patterns, and am in the process of putting everything together in iBooks Author. Here are the final six (the mug in the back is on an extra coaster for scale):

I tried to vary the shapes and styles of the coasters in an effort to create a more diverse pattern pack. I've found that I like to take a concept and work many versions of it so that I can explore the different possibilities. This lends itself to creating pattern packs and I can see a lot of potential ideas for the future (beaded snowflakes, bookmarks, crosses, repeatable squares, etc.)

One thing that I discovered while working on these coasters is that backwards designing can be really beneficial. Both of the floral coasters were designed by forming the outer round first, and then fitting the inner rounds later on. This saves so much time when needing to cut and re-tat, because you don't have to cut up the laborious final round. (Click here to read more about backwards designing)

I also learned that it's difficult to design things to fit a certain size. The coasters in the image above are all tatted in size 20 thread (except the one that the mug is sitting on, which is in size 40). As you can see, the coasters came out to be different sizes. If you nitpick like I do, you can tat the larger ones in size 40 thread to make them smaller, or you can just use a larger mug. You could also use them as mini doilies instead of coasters.

It will be a while before I have all of the patterns written up. By the way, if you have a Mac and design patterns I highly recommend trying out iBooks Author. I'm still making my diagrams in Inkscape, but I'm saving them as images and loading them into iBooks Author so that I can add detailed written instructions as well.

I got distracted again...

As I was looking over the floral doily and coasters that I designed earlier this year, I wondered why I didn't try a five petaled version. I opened up my binder of tatted samples, found a five petaled flower and started designing. Here is the finished doily in size 20 and size 40 thread:

This lays better than the previous design so I think I will use it in my upcoming pattern pack instead. Which brings up the question of what to do with designs that don't quite fit my standards. Would you like to see them offered as free patterns?

I haven't given up on the floral coasters, and I'm super close to getting them down to three rounds (they were originally four which I thought was excessive for such a small piece of tatting):

If you've ever wondered why it takes me so long to get patterns completed and written, now you know!

Square Coasters

My exploration of mini doilies and coasters has come to an end with this square design:

I drew this design a few years ago, when I had first stumbled upon the Kaleidoscope Drawing Pad app. At that time I wasn't aware of the behavior and limitations of ring and chain placement, and simply drew something that I thought would be aesthetically pleasing. I saved this pattern for last because I knew it would be a challenge and would require some deviation from the original concept. Here is the drawing side by side with the tatting. I think it came out pretty close to what I had in mind:

As always, it took a number of attempts to get here:

The attempts are displayed from left to right (like the page of a book) with the final being the white coaster in the lower right corner. I really should have stopped at the pink version above it but I wanted to play with colors and try a slight alteration in stitch count. In the end, I will be using the stitch count from the pink version as it has a bit more wiggle room for differences in tension.

Next I will be making some small edits to a couple of previous coasters and then it will be time to write up everything on the computer.

Another Coaster

Here is yet another coaster for my collection. I used a small split ring to climb from the central rosette to the outer round, and completed the pattern in one pass. It does use a lot of thread and I needed a large Clover shuttle to hold enough of the Lizbeth size 20 to finish the coaster in one go. (By the way, if you've never tried the larger Clover shuttles I highly recommend them...they can even be used for size 100 thread and work wonderfully.)

This is done in size 20 Lizbeth, #658 Ocean Turquoise Light. It's a really pretty blue and I'm going to buy another ball when I get the chance. The coaster measures 4.25 inches across.

I actually finished this pattern several weeks ago, and would have posted it earlier had I not come down with the flu. At least I think it was the flu, though I can't say I've ever had an illness that caused me to feel like I was bobbing up and down on a fishing pier for over a week. I'm finally starting to get my energy back after about 15 days with whatever it was.

I have one more coaster that I'd like to design before I start writing up patterns. It's something that I drew over a year ago and is in the shape of a square. I'm hoping to have that done in a few more weeks.