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.