Tatting for the Wedding

Here are some pictures with a bit of tatting in them that I made for the wedding this weekend.

I have shown these cups before and finally, here is how they are going to be used. This tray will hold the wedding ring and the cups will be filled with scented finely sliced pandanus leaves with flower petals. The tatting is in the 'cup-huggers'.

The wedding ring is in the silver box.

Close up of the silver box

Tatted daisies with beads in the centre ...

....  made into small pins to be worn by ushers on the day.

There will be bridal gift trays exchanged between the families of the bride with the groom during the solemnisation ceremony.  It is customary to decorate the tray and the gifts before making the exchange.   Wedding gifts decoration is big business here.  That service can be obtained through specialised wedding centres or individuals who offer such work, for a fee. For this wedding, the family decided to do it ourselves.  Thankfully, there are some creative people in the family and so we pool our resources.

Here are a couple that we have made.

There will be nine trays in all.  I'll try and take pictures of each one and share here later.

Tatting with Mary Konior

I was the first stop for the Mary's Travelling book, Tatting in Lace by Mary Konior.   I was given one month to enjoy the book.

I managed to tat a few patterns from the book and it was also an opportunity to learn a few techniques and understand Mary Konior's design style.  I must say the more I look through her books, the more I am inspired by her designs.

First I made this Convolvulus design.  I received a bookmark in this design some time back and have always wanted to tat the design.

Convolvulus

Then I made the Angelica Snowflake.  I noticed that most of MK's design are one-shuttle patterns .  I have always had issues with bare thread tatting in shuttle-only patterns and this is a good exercise for me.

Next comes a few challenges that I set for myself. I also noticed that a common feature in MK's books is what she termed as 'composite' designs.  They are designs that are made up of fragments or tatting joined together. My challenges was to find a way of making these composite designs in one pass, and here are my attempts.  There are split rings and mock rings involved in these.

Corner Spray

Birdcage

Finally, this is a bookmark that I adapted from an edging pattern from the book, the Hedgerow

I also attempted the roll tatting, using patterns from MK's book, which I wrote about here and here.
I hope the next person in the list is enjoying the book as much as I had.

StarChic

Model on the left is size #20, on the right is size #80

This simple star design was inspired by the ageless Hens-and-Chicks patterns that we see often.
Very easy and quick to make.  Unfortunately, I did not measure the amount of thread required.

To download the pattern, click here.

Rolling a Stumpy

My earlier post on roll tatting brought some comments asking what roll tatting is. I'll try and explain here through some pictures.

Roll Tatting is so called because the thread are not knotted but rolled over the core thread. 

Rolled instead of knotted

An explanation of how the shuttle is moved to get the roll effect on the core thread can be seen through these two links, JaneE's explanation and Karen Cabrera's video. What is important to remember is that there is still the flip because you need to transfer the roll from the shuttle thread to the finger thread.

I find it easier to make the roll stitches in groups of not more than 10 rolls at a time.  After each group of 10, I gently push the rolls, after it has been transferred to the finger thread, to stack it close together, like so ..

Double-stitches before the join, roll stitches after it

You need to keep the pinch on this stack of rolled stitches because they can easily un-roll since they are not knotted as the standard double-stitches are.

The pattern that I am working on when I took the photos above is the Stumpy bookmark by Kersti Anear. I was looking for easy patterns to practice my new-found ability and felt that it would be a good one because there are no decorative picots in the design.

Rolled Stumpy (minus the tassels)

The roll tatting parts are on the outer side of the rings.  I substituted one double-stitch with two roll stitches, but looking at the finished Stumpy, maybe it should have been more.  Here is a close-up picture.

Rolling! Rolling! Rolling off the Shuttle

As if you hadn't guessed it already ... yes, finally tried rolling instead of knotting.  And to prove that I did, here is a picture of some  fragments of my attempts at roll tatting.  I must say after the first few hiccups it rolled out quite well. From the fifth roll onwards, I actually enjoyed it.

Snippets from  patterns by Mary Konior

The top left was done in size 10.  Didn't turn out so nice. Tried again with the one on the right.  This time it was much better. As for the green piece at the bottom, well ... let's just say .. I am on a roll.