The TIAS Piccadilly Express with bonus train cars

Sherry Pence promised a bonus pattern to those of us who finished the TIAS. The pattern turned out to be for two train cars attached to the locomotive. So now my Piccadilly Express is complete. Toot, toot! :-)

We were instructed to start the TIAS with two fully-loaded shuttles. I had to do a shoelace trick for the last wheel, but then there was juust enough thread to finish the two train cars!

Jane's Bookmark Cross in floral colours

I've just finished doing a Jane's Bookmark Cross for a friend (pattern here or here). I used Lizbeth Wildflower Size 40 – it's one of my favourite colourways.

I had a lucky accident when I started it – the first ring happened to be blue, the colour in the middle, where the colours start changing in opposite directions. (I.e., Green - red - pink - yellow - purple - blue - purple - yellow - pink - red - green). So, the colours on opposite rings were almost the same. Of course, when I started the second pass, I deliberately arranged the colours in the same way. A very pleasing effect, don't you think?

TIAS Days 8–11 – It's the Piccadilly Express!

I fell behind a bit with posting my updates for the TIAS by Sherry Pence. But now I'm caught up! :-) So, here are the remaining 'days' of tatting:

Day 8 – I thought this might be a hansom cab, with a tatted pony coming next 

Day 9 – okay, two small wheels, one big rear wheel, bulldozer thing in front…

Day 10 – The chain and big ring seems like a funnel…

Day 11 – it is a funnel! All aboard the Piccadilly Express!

A very fine little locomotive! Really had me guessing most of the way. Thanks, Sherry, for all the fun!

TIAS Days 5, 6 & 7 — what on earth can it be?

I've been busy and not tatting very much. Thank God for TIAS — just a little bit of tatting each time.

So, here are Days 5, 6 and 7. As you can see from my wild guesses, I really have no idea what it is! After Day 6, I thought, okay, it's going to join back to the second picot on the flower, then it will go back out and make another loop of the same shape and join back into the third (or first) picot of the flower. But Day 7 joined back into both those picots! Back to the drawing board…

Day 5: Is it an easychair with a big cushion at the foot?

Day 6: Is it one leg of a pair of trousers?

Day 7: Is it a cannon (with a flower on the back end)?

Day 7: Or is it the upper part of a ballgown?

TIAS Day 4 — is it a dinosaur?

What do you think? Big body, long neck – like one of those plant-eating saurian monsters.

TIAS Day 3

When we tatted Day 3, we discovered that the design cups. What could it be? I figure it looks like a hat for a flower fairy. But, since I don't have a flower fairy handy, I put it on a tiny teddy bear. What do you think? :-)

Tat It And See

I'm taking part in the Tat It And See (TIAS) currently being run by Sherry Pence. On her regular blog she posts the mystery pattern a little at a time, and on this special blog we can post our progress and our guesses about what it is. Do join in the fun!

I think I'll be posting my progress there rather than here. Here's my first post. :-)

Okay, okay, here are pictures of my Day 1 and Day 2 tatting.

What is it? My current guess: this is the skirt of a crinoline lady. Go to the TIAS blog to see everyone else's guesses! :-)

Not as original as I thought…

The first design I wrote a pattern for was a simple little flower with heart-shaped petals. I was thinking of cherry blossoms, particularly the iconic Japanese sakura you see in art and logos, so I called it Cherry Blossom Hearts. Here it is:

Cherry Blossom Hearts

The first place I showed it was in InTatters. One of the other tatters told me that there was a quite similar motif in Minitats, by Patti Duff — with six dimpled petals rather than five. I asked around, and was eventually able to contact Patti Duff and get her okay to 'publish' my little motif. This was at the end of December 2012. Then, a couple of weeks ago, I was flipping through my copy of A Pattern Book of Tatting, by Mary Konior. And there was a motif with five dimpled petals — very similar to my little cherry blossom! It's called Wild Rose, and it's on page 87.

In light of that, I've rewritten my design and 'copyright' notes for this pattern, and the latest version is here. Obviously, the motif idea is not mine alone; it has been around for a long time, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if in future I discover still other published examples of this flower. However, I developed this design before I saw either of the published examples, so I think it is okay if I continue to share my version of it with you all.

I'm glad I didn't know about Mary Konior's motif until recently. If I had, I might have been quite discouraged. My very first little written-up PDF pattern! It was also the first design that I added a diagram to — the diagram was easy enough that by doing it I could learn a new software program, as well as figure out how I wanted to make diagrams of rings and chains. I've since gone on to write up more complicated designs and do more complicated diagrams, but this was the first rung on that ladder.

Thank you, little cherry blossom! :-)

Testing yet again…

I'm still not convinced that Feedburner "Follow by Email" is working right. If you received an e-mail notification of this post via Feedburner, could you let me know? Thanks! :-)

Testing again…

No eye candy this time – though I do appreciate the comments on the crosses! :-) I would just like to know if "Follow by email" is working. If no-one is getting e-mail notifications through that, I'll remove that gadget and try something else – there seem to be lots of options!

Testing, testing…

I've been testing the way the various features of this blog work. Right now, I am trying to see if the "Follow by e-mail" gadget by Feedburner works. If you entered your e-mail previous to this, and now you get an e-mail notification, can you please let me know? Thanks.

And, here's some more eye candy:

Another Cross Variation, design by Rachael Mohler

I learned lots from tatting this design, too. I tried to slim it down, and discovered that it wasn't so easy to improve on it:

Rachael's cross, flanked by my slimmed-down attempts

The slimmer crosses look okay in this picture, but in fact they ruffle a bit in the middle. But Rachael's original pattern lies perfectly flat!

Anyway, if you received an e-mail notification for this, I'd be very happy to know! Also, please let me know whether it was Feedburner, or Blogger, or Google+, or etc. that notified you. Thanks!

Post with a picture

 When I posted a link to this blog in Facebook, I was surprised that no thumbnail appeared. Was it because I didn't have any posts with pictures? So, here is a picture:

Endless Hearts finger ring, January 2013

This will motivate me to get that pattern done…

Just checked, and there's still no thumbnail! If anyone could explain why, I'd be interested to know…

Check out the tabs…

I intended this as a catalogue of work rather than an actual blog. So – surprise – the main content of this blog is in the 'pages', shown as tabs at the top. So, if you're wondering what to look at, check those out.

My patterns are up!

Yes, the main reason I started this blog has been achieved! Have a look under the My Patterns tab. Now, I still have to make the blog pretty. Also, if there's any feature you would like to see which I don't have, let me know.

My first ever blog post

Well, this is just to get something up on my blog, so that I'll have something to customise. I want to post my tatting patterns, and maybe a gallery of other things I've tatted. All in good time. All after I've found out how to do tabs...