My completed Renulek Spring 2014 Napkin; how I chose my colours

On 7 September, I was able to borrow my brother-in-law's camera and take a good picture of my completed, blocked Renulek Spring 2014 Napkin in natural daylight, and do some justice to the colours of the threads. Here it is at last! :-)

Renulek Spring 2014 Napkin, finished and blocked

It's 17 inches (or 43 cm) across after blocking. I feel really proud of it, of course, and I'm just sorry that there isn't any state fair in Singapore where I can enter it and have it displayed. Anyway, I have submitted it in an online competition. :-)

Several people have said that they really like the colours I used. I have listed them in my previous posts; here I will just tell how I came to have this colour scheme. There was a tat-along for this doily on InTatters earlier this year. I was watching as the other members tatted each round of this doily in various lovely colour combinations. I was at that time working on the Victorian Trellis Doily (in cream only), but finally I caved in and decided to join, and went to look at my thread stash and choose colours. So, I didn't buy any new thread — all the colours I used, I already had.

I should mention that, shortly before this, the Tatting Designers Online Class had discussed basic colour theory. Our instructor, Susan K. Fuller, showed us colour wheels at various websites, and we looked at complementary (i.e., contrasting) and analogic (i.e., similar) colour schemes. We talked about warm and cool colours, intense and dull colours. In particular, I remember learning that yellow was a very powerful colour.

I also already knew that it's quite easy to overwhelm the design of a doily by using variegated colours that are too strong — as exemplified in this post by Jon Yusoff. I thought, I'm not very brave, I'll probably go with analogic colour combinations.

So, with all this in my mind, I put my balls of Lizbeth 40 side by side and looked at them. I had a vague idea that I wanted to create an impression of flowers on a background of leaves. Somehow I decided on Butterfly Breeze and Pineapple Parfait for Round 1. I think I picked Pineapple Parfait because I thought of Round 1 as a flower, and a flower ought to have a yellow centre. I had a few other colours shortlisted, but nothing firmly decided for the rest of the doily.

So, after tatting Round 1, I wanted some blue flowers for Round 2. Enter Arctic Waters. Blue flowers with yellow centres — Pineapple Parfait again.

In Round 3, I meant to start introducing Leafy Green. But, as I wrote in this blog post, I changed my mind. I realised that I had to use Pineapple Parfait yet again to make the flowers in Round 3 pop forward.

At that point, I realised that Pineapple Parfait was the powerful yellow foundation for the colour scheme of my doily. I decided to use it only for the rounds that seemed like flowers. At that time, that was only Round 8 — Renulek had not yet come out with the final rounds. But when I saw her Rounds 12 and 13, I knew that they needed to be partially or completely yellow, too. For the rounds that seemed more like leaves and vines, I planned to use green threads, but combine them with variegated threads to suggest little blossoms among the vines.

Round 4 needed to be a more receding colour combination than Round 3. Which green? I decided on Spring Green. It's weak compared to yellow, but it's a little stronger, more forthcoming and more spring-y than Leafy Greens. I had found out in Round 3 that Butterfly Breeze was not as strong as Fruit Fizz — so I now used it in Round 4.  I finally introduced Leafy Greens in Round 5, which I wanted to be still more receding than Round 4.

At about Round 5, I decided that six colourways was enough! I would not introduce more. So, Pineapple Parfait to accentuate flower centres or other important parts of the design. Three colourways for flower petals — Butterfly Breeze, Arctic Waters and Fruit Fizz. Two greens to give some variety to the cooler parts of the pattern — Spring Green and Leafy Greens. Also, I would try not to use the same colours for petals and leaves in successive rounds, but alternate between them.

That was my overall plan, but I didn't decide for sure on the colours for each round until I had finished the previous round and could look at the whole doily as it grew. For the final round, I was very tempted to introduce a seventh colourway — something with yellow and pink/red, for the edges of the big yellow flower petals of Rounds 12 and 13. I had a ball of Tropical Fruit Punch, and I matched it with my Pineapple Parfait. But then I realised that Butterfly Breeze also had yellow and pink. It was also particularly nice to finish Round 13 with the same colours that I had started with in Round 1.

I knew I was breaking the rules for colours in doilies — I had way too many! I would swamp the design! I kept wondering whether my experiment would work out. Would the design of the doily be clear? Or would it be a garish mess?

Now that it's done, I think I can declare the experiment a success! :-D I can see a few reasons for that:

1. Three of my variegates are analogic colour combinations. That is, Pineapple Parfait is a combination of yellows, Arctic Waters a combination of blues, and Leafy Greens a combination of greens.
2. Except for Pineapple Parfait, each colourway marched in only one round, then was switched out. This kept the multicolour variegated colourways (Butterfly Breeze and Fruit Fizz) from swamping the design.
3. Both my multicolour variegates have yellow or orange as one of their colours. This gave them some harmony with Pineapple Parfait when I combined them.
4. I had an overall intention — Spring Flowers — for the scheme of colours and the impression I was going for.

Lessons for future doilies? I think the main one is, use the stronger, 'popping forward' colours for the parts of a doily that you want to emphasise, and the duller, more receding colours for the parts of the doily that are more like background. I'm using this principle in the much more muted colour scheme I'm using for Jan Stawasz's Moje Robótki 8/2007 Big Doily. Also, look at the design of a doily and have an idea why you want to use a colour in this or that place. Also, yellow rules!

And finally… with perseverance, and good company on the journey — Yes, I CAN finish a big doily! :-D

Progress on the big Jan Stawasz doily — picots, rosettes and repeats, oh my!

I am a little sorry that Jan Stawasz doesn't seem to have given names to any of his lovely doilies and other works. Maybe it was because there were so many of them! In our tat-along thread in InTatters, I tried suggesting a few nicknames for it (Jupiter? Juno? Big Beauty?). However, none of them took. So this doily — the one published in Moje Robótki 8/2007 — is just going to be referred to as the Jan Stawasz Big Doily.

Anyway, I have been alternating between this doily and the Renulek Spring 2014 Napkin. This JS Big Doily is definitely harder for me than the Renulek doily. Renulek has tended to use one size of ring in any given round. But not Jan Stawasz! The rings are various sizes, with various intervals between the picots. The chains are various lengths, again with various intervals between picots.

And the picots are graduated — there are lots of bunches of three picots, with the centre one being bigger than the ones on either side. Also, since the decorative picots are important, I am trying to make them bigger than my joining picots — not with too much success so far; I tend to make small picots.

So, I have had to stay on my toes in tatting this doily, and I've been undoing mistakes a good deal.

Here's Round III done:

Jan Stawasz Moje Robótki 8/2007 doily, Round III complete

After that, I thought I might get bored on Round IV, or perhaps I would lose count of all the simple rings and chains — that is, I would have the opposite difficulty from Rounds II and III — all the rings and chains are the same, or nearly so! So then I thought I would do the Round V rosettes first, then join them in as I tat Round IV. But I discovered that keeping track of decorative vs. joining picots was much harder on an unconnected rosette than on the simple Round IV. So I abandoned my first Round V rosette halfway and went back to Round IV. 

But then I was curious and I joined in my Round V rosette, to see how it would look. I also had some notion of tatting both Round IV and Round V together, but found it too awkward to have three shuttles and a ball hanging from the work. 

Jan Stawasz Moje Robótki 8/2007 doily, Rounds IV & V begun

 So then I proceeded with Round IV. Thanks to another member of InTatters, I knew I had to be careful to keep count of the joining and non-joining chains, and the joining vs. the decorating picots on the rings. That is, Round IV is not so very simple after all! So, I put strivers on the joining picots to keep track.

The strivers alerted me to a major mistake. I had joined to Round III too soon (at the ring marked by the orange slice), and the strivers were no longer straddling the valleys of Round III in a symmetrical fashion.

Jan Stawasz Moje Robótki 8/2007 doily, mistake in Round IV

 I started undoing the nine rings after my mistake, but then the thread broke, so I just cut them off and rejoined and continued. I still had just enough thread on my shuttle to finish Round IV. Whew!

Jan Stawasz Moje Robótki 8/2007 doily, Round IV complete

You can now see all three colours of Coats Mercer Crochet that I'm using for this doily. The main colour is a pale golden-brown (Colour 627), and the highlight colour is ecru or cream (Colour 609). And, if you look closely, you can see that Round IV is pale brown (Colour 626) — just slightly less yellow than the golden-brown in Rounds I, II and V. My idea is that the pale brown recedes a bit, so I will use it on the rounds which are plain, more like "background".

Another first for me on this doily is that this Coats thread is somewhat older than threads I've tatted with until now. I am learning to be more gentle with it — not to pull too hard, lest it breaks. That said, it's a beautiful firm thread, and it doesn't stick or twist at all when closing rings. And its subtle colours are easy on the eye.

Finally starting a doily by Jan Stawasz — and it's a big one!

I've been in love with patterns by Jan Stawasz since my early days of tatting (not that long ago — I only started in December 2011 :-) ). You can have a look at his patterns here. I've bought both his books, and helped others to buy them, too. But the pattern for a certain huge and gorgeous doily wasn't included. You can see that doily here — it's Photo 34. This doily was published in Moje Robótki 8/2007. After a fair amount of trouble, and help from others, I got an original copy!

But I still didn't feel ready to start the doily. It has 18 rounds! Did I have the stamina to finish it? Well, in June, I went for a visit to Kuching, and there I met up with another tatter. She took me to a shop that stocks Coats Mercer Crochet Size 20. The price was so good that I bought 12 20g balls of it, in three colours. Then I came back to Singapore, and looked at my 16 balls of Coats Mercer Crochet Size 20, in four colours. I said, "What shall I do with all this thread?"

Meanwhile, there was talk on InTatters about tatting really big doilies. I thought, "I can use all my Coats thread for a really big, noble doily." — and this doily from Moje Robótki was the obvious candidate. So, I started trying to figure out whether I had enough thread. I posted an inquiry in InTatters about that, and discovered that many other people also wanted to tat this doily!

So, I've been encouraged to make a start. I decided that I needed to count stitches and make my own calculations. I used Karen Cabrera's method (see Lesson 73 on this page) to get the initial measurements on my thread. I now have all the calculations in an Excel sheet. I was able to calculate that I needed 4 20g balls of my main colour, and 1.7 balls of two other colours — or 7.5 20g balls, if everything was in one colour. I am also able to predict exactly how much thread to wind on the shuttle for each round.

So, now that I'm reassured that I won't run out of thread, I have made a start! Here are my Rounds 1 and 2:

Jan Stawasz Moje Robótki 8/2007 doily, Round 1

Jan Stawasz Moje Robótki 8/2007 doily, Round 2

And here's Round 3, still in progress:

Jan Stawasz Moje Robótki 8/2007 doily, Round 3 in progress

I am not very successful at showing you the colours I am using. The main colour for the doily is a pale golden-brown, like wheat. Round 3 is cream-coloured. Since I have only five balls of the wheat-coloured thread, I'll also be using another pale brown colour for the plain ring-and-chain rounds.

And, I still haven't finished my Renulek Spring doily! I'm now half-way through Round 11. It's a good contrast, tatting these two doilies with their two different threads. Also, doing the Renulek doily was certainly essential in building my confidence for tackling this much bigger and more difficult doily.