Triangles (Part 2)

This is a continuation of my previous post in which I was exploring different patterns that could be made with triangles. I was able to put together a cross based on the bookmark pattern:

Like the Priscilla Cross, this is a large piece of tatting and takes a while to complete. In size 40 thread it measures 6.75 inches long and 4.75 inches wide. You can get a better idea of how big it is in this photo:

I also wanted to mention that if you send me a message through my Blogger Contact Form, please check your spam/junk folder for a reply as well as your inbox. I try to respond within 24 hours, but sometimes my responses get sent to the spam folder (especially for those using Yahoo accounts). Always feel free to send me another message if you haven't heard back within a few days. It probably means that something went amiss with the email filters!

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.

Priscilla Cross

In my previous post, I talked about using software to help visualize pattern adaptations. I took the Priscilla bookmark and spliced it together to create a rough draft of a cross. Over the weekend, I estimated stitch counts for the inner rings and chains and began tatting. Here is the result:

As expected, the pattern adaptation was simple...though I could not have done it without the visual road map. The only stitch counts that were missing from the original bookmark were the floating rings and chains in the center of the cross. It took two tries to get it right, due to overestimating the size of the floating rings the first time. The discrepancy was apparent early on so I had only two arms of the cross completed before I started over again.

Like the bookmark, this cross is very large. I tatted it in DMC size 80, which is ever so slightly larger than Lizbeth size 80. It measures 5.75 inches long and 4.25 inches wide. It's all done in one pass, and is quite tedious, taking about 8 hours to finish.

I think the pattern would really benefit from the use of two colors. While tatting this, I realized that it would also make a nice square. The outer picots are already in perfect position to join multiple squares together. So, before making any diagrams, I will probably go off on a tangent and tat one square just to see how it looks. I say one square because I don't think I will have the stamina to make four...each square taking about 6 hours!

As I was looking through Craftree last night, I noticed that I am not the first person to adapt the Priscilla edging into a bookmark (maybe I am the first to adapt it into a cross?). I saw that Susie Arnholt had created the same bookmark in 2013, with different stitch counts and different corners (look for the off white bookmark in post #1, instructions for completion in post #5). Her rings are smaller and would work better with size 20 thread. My variations are somewhat limited to the tiny threads, unless you want a giant bookmark or cross.

Software Assisted Pattern Adaptations

When it comes to tatting, I am an absolute visual learner. I can follow diagrams with ease, but give me a written pattern and I don't know how to make heads or tails of it.

It naturally follows that to adapt a pattern, I need some kind of visual reference. Any computer program that has copy, paste, crop, resize, and rotate will do (though I tend to use various Apps on my iPad, because my laptop is usually tucked away in a closet.)

The Priscilla bookmark, for example, started as an edging from the Priscilla Tatting Book #2:

I wanted to see how the pattern would look if I turned it the other way around, so I took a photo of the pattern and cropped it:

I used two copies of the photo, making sure to rotate one of them so I could splice them together:

This gave me a basic idea of how the bookmark would look, though it still needed a corner. To do so, I used a third copy of the image and spliced it onto the end:

I tried pulling the corner out a little more, but found that it looked best as it is pictured above.

Figuring out the stitch count for the corner required only minor adjustments to the chains. However, as is the case with many vintage patterns, this one needed a bit of tweaking to get it to lay flat. I tatted a small sample to test out the corner and to adjust the stitch count:

From this, the final pattern was constructed:

At the beginning of the year, mb duke made a blog post and asked if the bookmark pattern could be converted into a cross. I believe the answer is yes, and that it would be fairly easy to do. Using the same concepts above, I can splice four images of the bookmark together to create a cross:

A bit of adaptation is needed to get the pattern to flow continuously, so I used an App on my iPad to draw over the center portion in white. I also began to draw connecting chains:

From this point, one can add their own ideas of how to stabilize the central part of the cross. I chose floating rings, which I drew on my iPad (please excuse the poor drawing quality!)

I don't have a finished version of this, but I am really confident that the idea would work. All that is needed is to estimate the stitch counts for the inner chains and floating rings. The rest of the stitch counts are already provided in the bookmark pattern itself. This is something that I have added to my ever growing "To Do" list, and if I ever complete it, I will add it to the free patterns section of my blog.

Design with Me: Cross of Sevens

Each time I attempt a design, I learn something new. Cross of Sevens taught me that it is a bad idea to design something while trying to avoid a certain stitch count. In this case, it is the number six. The idea for this pattern began when I was doodling squares on Kaleidoscope Drawing Pad. I came up with a sketch that resembled the central portion of a cross:

At the time, Kaleidoscope Drawing Pad lacked the feature that allows you to change symmetry mid drawing, so I was unable to make the rest of the pattern. I put it aside for a while and worked on other things.