Designing with Amaziograph

When I design a piece of tatting, I almost always need to work from a visual reference. I can kind of picture designs in my head, but the ideas are fuzzy, so I draw them on my iPad. For the past few years, I have been using an app called Amaziograph to brainstorm tatting designs. It works best for things that are symmetrical, such as doilies, snowflakes, and squares.

Here is my latest project, a small doily. The first photo shows the doily at about the halfway point. It is tatted in Lizbeth size 40 thread in white, and the Amaziograph drawing can be seen in black on my iPad:

I was worried about the outer chains because they are so long, but was able to get them to work by using balanced double stitches. Here is the finished doily next to the iPad:

Even though I have the drawing, stitch counts are still figured out the old fashioned way: through trial and error and past experiences. Stitch counts get a lot easier to calculate after years of practice. I've built up a kind of mental knowledge base and can get fairly good starting numbers just by looking at a drawing.

There's still a lot of work to be done for this pattern, including creating the diagram, written instructions, test tatting, and compiling some information on balanced double stitches. It will be a little while before the pattern is ready, probably December at the earliest.

3 in 1 Hexagon

Working on the table runner can be monotonous, so I spent some time putting together a different pattern. It's a hexagon that can be connected together to form a mat, or embellished to make snowflakes:

The pattern is available in my Etsy shop and you can get to the listing by clicking HERE.

The snowflakes have interchangeable centers, pictured below:

I couldn't help but wonder what the mat would look like if it was enlarged, so I used an app on my iPad called Photo Grid to splice together some images. The first is a hexagon shaped mat:

The next is an extended mat, which could be used as a table runner:

The thread is Lizbeth size 20 in White (#601) and Cotton Candy (#111). I think the extended mat would look nice if the motifs around the edge were changed to all white.

Jan's Doily

The final version of the doily has been tatted and the pattern can now be found in my Etsy shop. Click here to go directly to the listing.

Below is a photo of the doily, tatted in Lizbeth size 40 thread, White, Seagreen Light, and Turquoise Dark. It's next to the prototype of the doily, tatted in white:

I decided to name this pattern "Jan's Doily" because I was inspired by several of Jan Stawasz's doily designs. I really like the way he frames a central shape with a border of simple rings and chains.

The doily measures 11.75 inches wide when tatted in size 20 thread and 9.6 inches wide in size 40 thread. It's appropriate for a large vase or similar item:

Here is a closer photo of the prototype. It has a few minor irregularities because I was trying to come up with a good stitch count as I went along:

The colorized version was tatted afterwards, to test out my instructions and to make sure that everything lays flat:

Doily

Well, I've finally finished the instructions and test tatting for this doily. I know why I don't tat many doilies now. They just take so long to make, and this one isn't even that big!

Instructions for the doily can be found in my Etsy shop (click here to go directly to the listing). I proofread and test tatted this myself, as I do with all of my patterns. I didn't feel comfortable sending out such a big pattern for others to test, so if you find any errors or confusing parts, be sure to let me know.

The doily above was tatted in Lizbeth size 40 thread, White and Wildflower Garden. Here it is next to the all white doily that I tatted as a prototype. (The white doily was tatted in size 20 Lizbeth thread):

It's interesting how the addition of color changes a pattern so much. The medallions are more prominent in the colorful doily, while the negative spaces are more prominent in the white doily.

In size 40, the doily measures 8.75 inches across and in size 20 it measures 10.6 inches across. Both seem to be suitable under a large vase:

I think that will be it for shop patterns until late summer or early fall. A couple of years ago I was asked if I would make a collection of bookmark patterns. I meant to work on that last year, but got distracted by snowflakes. Perhaps bookmarks will be my next project?

Edit: I forgot to add a thank you to those who voted for me on Craftree for best tatting designer! I get embarrassed by these types of things and try to pretend they didn't happen. But Diane has posted about her award and emailed me so I figured I'd better acknowledge it! So, thank you and congratulations to all of the other winners :)

Round and round...

I've been battling a cold for the past few weeks, which is why I haven't been posting to my blog. I'm feeling much better now and just have a lingering cough.

In the meantime, I've continued to test tat my latest doily:

This round is particularly slow and tedious. I couldn't help but to take a break from it to create a new, much smaller design. I'll write more about that soon.

A start

I haven't had the chance to do much tatting over the past three weeks. However, I did manage to get a diagram and written instructions made for my latest doily, and I've just started to test tat it:

My curiosity got the better of me (again), and I wanted to see if the doily could be increased from 11 to 12 repeats while using the original stitch count. Well, it's already started to ruffle, so I think it will be best to stick with 11. I don't want to waste too much time on this experiment, so I'm going to finish the last few rings and chains and then start over with the correct amount of repeats. I'll set aside what I've done, just in case I want to go back to experimenting later.

Trimming

Here is the doily I've been working on, with a simple trimming added as the final round:

I've been designing in white thread because I can find it at the local craft stores, and the lack of color makes it really easy to see the negative space. However, I'd like to tat this doily again with a touch of color. I'll also use the opportunity to make some very small changes (reducing the number of picots in the last round and adjusting the size of a couple of rings).

For now, I've placed it under a vase of wooden flowers:

The doily isn't very big, measuring about 11 inches across when tatted in Lizbeth size 20 thread.

Also, a reminder that my Etsy shop is having a sale for a couple more days (ending Tuesday, November 28). Everything in the shop is 20% off and the discount is automatically applied.

Easier than expected

Designing this round wasn't bad at all. Tatting it, on the other hand, took some time:

To help with the design, I rendered a polar grid on Inkscape and printed it out. I used some spare thread to create a small tatted sample, and held the doily up to the grid to make sure that everything fit. I forgot to take photos of that, but here's the doily and polar grid side by side:

I took Sue's advice from the tatting design class, and placed my polar grid into a clear plastic sheet. This ensures that no ink gets on the tatting.

Here you can see the small sample I tatted before coming up with the final stitch counts. On the bottom is the sample, and on the top is the in progress tatting:

I eventually had to cut off the sample so I could complete the round:

The doily will need one more round before it is finished. It will be simple, just a trimming along the outer edge.

Leisurely

Putting together a bunch of patterns is a lot of work, and I wanted to do some tatting that was more leisurely. I'm trying my hand at designing a doily, without any drawings this time. So far so good:

Each round has been pretty simple because I want to save the detail for the last few rounds. I'll be mirroring the center as a series of scallops around the edge, and that will be the most difficult part to design. We'll see how it goes...

Four Square

Well, this isn't exactly what I intended for the design, but I have a good idea of how to proceed:

It started out as a small repeatable square:

Which was connected into four squares:

I wanted to put an edging around the repeatable squares but was having trouble coming up with something that would fit. My goal is to make the edging repeatable, so that it will work with any amount of squares. Unfortunately, my first attempt (pictured at the top of this post) will only work with a sequence of four squares.

After that attempt, I looked through a few of Jan Stawasz's patterns and realized that I could make the edging from a mirror image of what was happening in the square pattern. I've got it all figured out on my iPad, but nothing to show just yet. Actually, while I was piecing things together, I stumbled upon another repeatable square, which I've been distracted by:

All of these designs are a continuation of the triangle theme that I've been posting about. I didn't realize how many paths this would take me down...this will easily keep me busy for the rest of the year!

Sunflower

After seeing Joëlle tatting Blomqvist and Persson's Ice Crystal, I just had to revisit my copy of the book and join in. I've tatted a few of the smaller snowflakes from this book before, but this time I decided to try one of the doilies. This one is called Sunflower:

It's tatted in Lizbeth size 40, Spring Garden and White. It definitely needed blocking after Round 2 because the doily was ruffling quite a bit. Luckily, Round 3 was a lot easier and didn't pose any problems. Here is the finished doily on a black background:

As I was tatting the doily, I kept wondering if Lizbeth thread was too stiff for the project. This seems to happen mostly with white thread, and I don't notice it too much with the colors. Next time I tat something from this book I might try using DMC Cordonnet Special to see if it makes a difference.

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!

Unwinding Shuttles

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that I had accumulated a lot of unfinished projects. A cross, a bookmark, a few small doilies...all the result of design whims that got set aside. In an effort to free up some shuttles, I took the time to finish most of these small projects. One of them was an alternate version of the floral coaster that I worked on in January.

This is a follow up of an idea I had while working on the original concept of the doily. I wanted to try making the flowers smaller and increasing the number of flowers used in the last round (from 12 to 18). I think it gives the doily a more balanced look.

As I had done previously, I worked this pattern backwards. I tatted a circle of 18 flowers first, and then created a center to fit.

I really like this method for projects that have a time consuming outer round. It saves from having to cut and redo the last round when things don't work out. Instead, the inner rounds (which take much less time to tat), are cut off and redone.

Last week was also Billy's birthday. He turned 9 years old on February 28th. We buy him a cupcake every year so we can take a photo. We don't let him eat the cupcake, and normally he isn't interested in it at all. This year was a little different:

In his old age, Billy has developed a bit of a sweet tooth. He sampled the frosting and cupcake, but then decided to go back to his bowl of celery.

Which reminds me, I never posted my completed Tat it and See. Here is the rabbit that Jane Eborall designed this year. I didn't have any orange thread for the carrot, so I made a stick of celery instead. Billy doesn't like carrots anyways :)

Calculating amount of thread used (Sherry's method)

I made a few minor adjustments to one of my doilies and tried tatting it in two colors. In the beginning, this was progressing well...but as the doily came together I realized just how much contrast there was between the two colors:

Kaleidoscope Coaster (click here for pattern listing)

This is done in Lizbeth size 20 Seagreen Light and Seagreen Dark. I still like the placement of the colors, which gives an outlining effect when seen from far away. I think I will try this again in colors that are closer together in shade.

A little while ago, I made a post about measuring yards of thread used in tatting. I was doing it the old fashioned way, measuring how much thread I loaded onto each shuttle, tatting the piece, and then seeing how much thread was left over. I have had a few people point me to tutorials by Sherry Pence and Karen Cabrera, in which the amount of thread is calculated beforehand. Sherry has a written tutorial on her blog, and Karen has a video (which I believe is based on Sherry's blog post).

(Aurora's tatting helper has also been mentioned, but I haven't gotten the chance to check it out and have to access an older computer to retrieve the bookmark for the site.) Edited to add: Phyllis has provided the link for the TatHelper website, you can access it by clicking here.

I decided to follow Sherry Pence's blog post and made some calculations for Round 2 of the doily pictured above. For this particular doily, there was an overestimation of the light green thread and an underestimation of the dark green thread. Here is the breakdown:

Light Green thread
      Estimated usage: 15.3 yards
      Actual usage: 14.56 yards

Dark Green thread
      Estimated usage: 8.35 yards
      Actual usage: 9.22 yards

I should mention that Sherry advises adding some extra to each measurement to account for picots and core thread. What I find interesting is that the light green thread didn't need any extra. In fact it used less than the amount calculated. The dark green thread required about 1 extra yard. Luckily, I erred on the safe side and had plenty of thread on my shuttles to complete Round 2 in one pass.

Over the past several months, I have been taking notes on the amount of thread used for different pieces of tatting. I think it's time to make a spreadsheet to see how the actual thread usage matches up with Sherry's method of calculating.

A New Binder

I've been taking part in a few of the online Tatting Designer's Classes that meet every Tuesday on Chatzy. Sometimes they talk about keeping a notebook to store design ideas, notes, and patterns. All of my sketches are made and stored on my iPad, so I don't have a notebook for that. What I do have is a design binder, where I put samples of my finished pieces as well as written instructions for completion. Earlier this year, I noticed that my binder was getting quite full, and it was time to get a new one.

The old binder (the one in back) holds about 20 patterns that I designed or adapted from 2014 to 2015. Some of these have variations so there are more than 20 pages in there. The reason it doesn't hold more is because I put a sample of the finished tatting into each plastic sleeve, which adds a lot of bulk to the binder:

I blogged about this binder a few years ago when I was first starting it out. I've made about 10 patterns per year, and if I continue at this rate my new binder will be filled by the end of 2017.

Right now, the new binder just has a few small doilies in it. This is the latest one I am working on, which still needs some adjustments:

I'd like to make the points a little smaller, and make a couple of other changes so that the doily lays flat. I think this would look interesting in two colors, using one color to outline the other.

Losing Followers?

Earlier today, as I was reading through tatting blogs, I noticed that Jane Eborall had mentioned losing followers. I've also been losing followers this week, so I decided to see what I could find on the Google product forums. Turns out Google is doing a cleanup of blogger, and is removing followers who aren't using Google accounts (click here for the forum post). Just a heads up for those who are also noticing a decrease in followers, or who may be missing some blogs on your reading list.

Onto the tatting front:

Like many on the East coast, I was snowed in over the weekend. I decided to use that time to make another coaster sized doily:

Actually, this version is quite small for a coaster, tatted in DMC size 80 and measuring only 3.25 inches across. Not to worry though, I had the perfect use for it:

These are my miniature books by Angeline Crichlow (author of "Let's Tat"). You can read more about them by clicking here. In my older blog post they were displayed on the first few rounds of the Jan Stawasz Monster Doily, which is now too big for that purpose. I've since put them on my bookshelf on top of my mini doily.

In size 40 thread, this miniature doily works out to be about 4 inches across, which is the same size as a coaster. Here is a side by side next to the drawing that inspired it:

The floating rings connecting the outer round to the second round made this doily a lot easier to design. That's because I could change the circumference quite freely by adjusting the size of the floating rings. (Adjustments to circumference are often required for creating a flat outer round). I'm thinking about making a few more designs and creating another pattern pack, this time for mini doilies/coasters. That should occupy me for the next month or so.

Like Puzzle Pieces

I'm not sure if I've ever written about designing being like placing pieces of a puzzle. It's something I think about often, especially when working with elements that don't quite fit into place. I've found that it's extremely helpful to make little bits of tatting to overlay on the offending part of the design. Like pieces of a puzzle, you can visualize what fits and what doesn't.

I decided to try something new with my last piece of tatting and truly work it backwards. I had been having trouble fitting a center into a pre-determined outer round and wanted to see if this would help.

I began by tatting a ring of 12 flowers, followed by one central flower:

I don't actually have photos of the next part, but I placed bits and pieces of tatting into the open space to see what would fit. After I had an idea of something that would work, I began filling in the blank area with tatting:

Surprisingly, it was very easy to tat this way. I thought that it would be awkward to work in a confined space, but it went very smoothly! I will definitely use this method in the future.

After I finished up my sample, I realized that I might also be able to use the center from my previous post, with altered stitch counts. I tatted a new center and placed it on top of the light blue doily to see if it would work:

As you can see, the picots on the white chains match up with the flowers in the final round. Many hours later, I ended up with a few small doilies:

These ended up very similar to the small doily in my previous post, as I wanted to keep the same idea and not "lose" that pattern. However, I received a lot of great suggestions on that post, which I've been keeping in mind for future adaptations of this pattern.

Speaking of puzzles, I've also been working on Jane's TIAS. The consensus is that this will be a frog, but I'm still not sure how three beads will be worked into that. I'm anxious to see how it turns out!

Backwards Designing

I've been wanting to experiment with making small doilies and have drawn up some ideas on my iPad. It seems that no matter how much pre-planning I put into a design, it never turns out how I imagined. I'm not really sure how I feel about this one:

I had envisioned it with much smaller flowers and then realized that I had to make them fairly large to get around the circumference of the doily. Even with the larger flowers, it required some stretching to fit. I can get this to work by reducing the chains, but I don't know if I like the proportions. The flowers are too overwhelming.

I think the reason this is so difficult is because it is being designed backwards. I started with the idea of interconnected split ring flowers for the outer round, and tried to design a middle that would match up.

I actually designed backwards for the Frauberger Doily as well, starting with the edging and creating inner rounds to fit. It was tricky then and it is tricky now. I'm always up for a good brain teaser though. Maybe I will have more ideas after I sleep on it.

Lost and Found

I have not been in the mood to tat any more snowflakes, so I decided to make another Frauberger doily. Over a month ago, I had completed Round 1 in size 40 White and Green Coral Sea. In the midst of cleaning, I threw it somewhere, but where?

After a while of looking around I found it among a bunch of tatting scrap (the kind of tatting that is meant for the trash bin)! I have a tendency to either throw things away, or to hide them so well that I lose them for years. All in an effort to make a space look more clean and organized.

While I was looking for the doily, I also remembered that I had been working on a bookmark over the summer. I found it in one of my bags, and it's a little more than halfway done:

The bookmark is made in size 80 Lizbeth, White and Niagara Falls. I'm hoping to finish it in time for Christmas.

As I tat things, I'm beginning to take detailed measurements of the length of thread used. I'm wondering if there is any correlation between size 20, 40, and 80. Would I be able to predict thread usage for size 80 if I know how much is used in size 20?

So far, I have confusing results that don't really have correlations. I need to add my hand scribbled notes to spreadsheets so that I can keep track of the data over time, and see if any patterns emerge.

In addition to tatting, I'm also working on a set of new Inkscape posts about how to place "automatic" pattern repeats. This will be at least two posts long, and will probably be ready next week.

Doily is Done

The doily is done, and has been for some time, though I only got around to sewing the ends in today. Here it is in Lizbeth size 20, Ecru and Autumn Spice. It measures 5.5 inches across:

On my previous post, Frivole asked if I was going to share the pattern, either on my blog or in my Etsy shop. Before her comment, I had been thinking about what to do with the pattern for several weeks. You see, I really want to make some changes to my pattern writing style by including things like materials used and written instructions to go along with the diagram.

I also recently found iBooks Author, a free App for Mac computers (unfortunately not available on the iPad). There are some nice looking templates with places to put photos, materials, a written pattern section, etc. I should still be able to use my Inkscape diagrams by loading them into iBooks Author as photo files.

I'd like to take my time playing around with these new ideas, without the pressure of adding the pattern to my shop. (Besides I don't know how much of this pattern I can actually call my own, as the third and most intricate round, though heavily modified, is essentially Frauberger's design).

As a result, I've decided to share my pattern notes here, so that those who are interested in trying out the doily can do so, and I can take all the time I want to play around with my pattern writing ideas. When I do get around to making polished written patterns, both this and the Frauberger bookmark will be available on my Free Patterns page.

For now, I've uploaded photos of my pattern notes. These are the actual notes that I use when I am formulating a design, so there are some erasure marks throughout. Please scroll down for a zoomed in photo as well:

There is a very slight issue with cupping of the thrown rings in Round 1, which is easily blocked with a dab of water. Another way to help with this issue is to make the picots joining the trefoils together just a bit bigger (instead of making them "very small picots" just make them "normal" picots, if that makes sense). All other joins will be very small picots.

Right clicking and opening these images in a new tab will make the numbers large enough to see. If anything is unclear, don't hesitate to ask!

For those who have already made the Frauberger bookmark posted to my blog in June, this doily will be no problem. Otherwise, please take a look at this post (click here) for more information about how the Frauberger edging is made. (Also note that the stitch counts in the bookmark are slightly different than those in Round 3 of the doily).

Lastly, for those who are interested in how many yards are used, I have made calculations with Lizbeth size 20 thread.

Unlike my typical diagrams, my rough notes are not color coded. For the yard calculations just remember that Shuttle 1 forms the rings while Shuttle 2 forms the chains/thrown rings. In Round 3 the shuttle work looks like this:

Round 3 can be done in other ways as well, just remember that the yards calculated are specifically for the above method.

And so I leave you with another long winded post (try as I might to make these things concise, I just cannot escape my detail oriented ways). I'm off to enjoy the Fall weather and then to continue tatting Frivole's latest snowflake. Until next time...