Update on the Sicilian Circle, a pattern by Mary Konior

 

Completed Round 3 of this project from the book, Tatting in Lace by Mary Konior.

I am not really happy with this mainly because of the long chains and large rings.  Had to block/press it after this round because my tension went haywire.  This is one reason why I seldom do patterns with long chains and big rings.

There is only one round left, so I will finish it.

I had my first dose of the Covid vaccine a week ago.  Was feeling okay on the day of the vaccination but came down with fever for the next two days.  There was slight body ache and soreness in the arm where the needle went in, but I was able to do some tatting.  My 2nd dose will be in 12 weeks.  

Stay healthy and stay safe everyone.  I know some restrictions have been removed in some countries but do continue to take precautionary measures.

Sicilian Circle by Mary Konior

I am working on the Sicilian Circle by Mary Konior from her book Tatting in Lace. At first, I thought it would be a straightforward pattern because I needed an easy one to work on after my failure with the Norma Benporath project (my previous post).

It turned into an interesting tatting adventure with mock rings.

Usually, mock rings are utilised when there are ring(s) upon chains and you want to execute with shuttle and ball rather than two shuttles.  However, in this design, mock rings are used as a design element.

Each of the group of four rings in the photo above are made up of a mock ring with a trefoil sitting on it. The use of mock rings also created the pointed arches in the chains holding the mock rings.

Round 3 (photo above) also utilises mock rings but, unlike Round 2, the mock rings are on the reverse side of the chains.  This is something that I had not used or made before and I find it rather interesting in terms of a designing process.  

In this pattern, Mary Konior used the lock join method of creating the mock rings. I have used the self-closing mock ring (SCMR) instead for mine. I have explained the two methods early in my blog, https://tatsaway.blogspot.com/2008/05/how-to-make-mock-ring.html

A tip on how to close big rings

Round 3 contains big rings, each with 30 double stitches in it.  Here is a tip on how to close big rings so that the double stitches are snugged up evenly all round.

When all the double stitches are made, I snug up the double stitches on the left side of the ring by slightly pulling the core thread.  Then, I bring the beginning and the the end of the ring close together and pinch the double stitches between my thumb and my index finger. Once secured, I pull the shuttle thread slowly to close the ring. 

Doing it this way ensures the the double stitches will remain flat and not twisted as the ring is closed.

Need a Name for a Doily

Remember this doily?

It is done.

I was considering adding a few more rows to it, maybe repeating the scallops, but I think it looks just nice as it is.  The finished doily is about 8 inches wide or 21cm, tatted with Milford 40.  Even though it says size 40, the thread feels like a size 30 to me.  Despite some twisting, it is a beautiful thread.

I have drawn the chart for it and will be writing the full instructions to include with the chart.

I am searching for a name to give to this doily and suggestions are welcome.  The only name that comes to mind is "Scallop Doily" but I will be happy to consider other suggestions.

Next, some of you were wondering what I plan to do with the Mary Konior motifs that I showed here.

Now that the project is done, I can share it.  It is for a multi-craft quilt project undertaken by a group of crafters.  This is my block,

It was prepared for a very special person and I will share a full picture of the quilt in a later post together with the story behind it.

Blue Mary's

In a rush to tat some motifs for a project, I turn to one of my favorite designers, Mary Konior.  These are what I have chosen from the book 'Tatting with Visual Patterns".

Quuen of Hearts

Posy

Maids of Honour

As to what they will be turned into, you'll have to wait a while for that.  The thread is Lizbeth no. 142 size 40.

The winners picked

After going through all the comments, removing duplicates and comments that do not qualify, there were 90 names in the drawing list for the giveaway winners.  Thank you for the nice words that each of you have written in your comments.  They are all very much appreciated.

As mentioned previously, I will pick two names from the list to receive these giveaway gifts.

Blank cards, tatting-embellished blank card, key fob, phone charm, beads scoop and  Spinning Wheel Glass Mat

I may add some more things from now until the day I actually send them out .... we'll see how it goes.

This is the first name picked from the list of 90 names;

The first drawing gave me God's Kid as one of the two winners.

After removing God's Kid's name from the list, I made a second drawing:

And Sandy C is the second winner.  Congratulations to both God's Kid and Sandy C.

From these two names, I will pick one name to get the doily shown in the earlier blog post. However, I decided that the name not picked will get this smaller doily,

God's Kid, Sandy C, please e-mail me your mailing details within the next 48 hours. If I do not receive anything from either of you by then, I will pick another name from the list.  I will only pick the winner of the oval doily after I received your details.

Thank you for participating in the draw.  I wish there were more gift to give out.  Hopefully there will be other opportunities.

More from MK and an unfinished doily

I was tatting Posy from Tatting with Visual Patterns and I must say that it is a good pattern to practice making joins at awkward angles.  I also found out that the way I usually make this join, the folded join, did not work with this pattern. When I need to make this type of join, I have the rest of the tatting in the cup of my hand and the picot I am joining to is right on top. But doing it this way resulted in my thread laying above the work, where as I need it to be beneath it. I had to change my method slightly to have the shuttle thread where I want.  And, despite this slight change, it turns out to be rather easy piece of tatting.

Next, I have below the Spinning Wheel Glass Mat from the same book, all done.

Lastly, a picture of a doily that I was working on a few weeks back.

This is Mat no. 34 from the DMC Book of Charted Tatting Designs by Kirstine & Inge Nikolajsen. This is only up to Round 3 of the doily out of seven rounds all together.  Could not proceed much further because I have run out of this particular thread.  I am still considering what to do next with this one.  I have a ball of yellow that is quite close to the yellow of this thread but it is size 40 where as the one I used here is size 30.

Still need to work on hiding those ends though,  .... not something that I like to do.  Wouldn't it be nice to be able to have someone just hiding ends ....... he he he.

Old Fashioned Heart done and a few others.

The Old Fashioned Heart mentioned in the previous post is part of a collection of hearts that I am tatting, as shown above.
Mary Konior's Queen of Hearts is easily recognisable in the picture.  The top two are the individual motif of the Rainbow Heart bookmark by Betsy Evans. Below them on the right is the finished Old Fashion Heart by Etha Schuette.  And lastly, the Happy Heart by Frivole.

All are wonderful designs and very enjoyable to tat.  Thank you to the designers.

Spinning Wheel Glass Mat again, and other things

I was tatting this Mary Konior pattern and notice this as I tat.

Lizbeth Springtime #20

I am tatting this with shuttle and ball and doing the SLT at each turn on the outside and the inside.  As I was tatting this, I notice the rings in the centre are in the colours following the colour flow of the thread - another surprise from using multi-coloured thread.


On other matters, I have changed my browser from Firefox to Chrome after I saw the notice from Blogger  saying that Firefox will not be supported by Blogger and I may experience problems blah blah blah. .... The thing is, I used Chrome before and had problems with my blog (couldn't leave comments is one of them) and switched to Firefox, which I had no problems with.  I guess, I'll just have to wait and see if the earlier problems resurface after this.


Regarding leaving comments, I wish that Blogger can put in a "Like" button somewhere at the end of blog posts.  I make sure to read the tatting blogs that I am following, and some that I do not follow regularly.  Sometimes there are posts that I like but I am not articulate enough to compose a comment.  So, I just want to be able to click "Like" to say that I like what was written.

Tatting Updates

I did a 'Diane' and tatted MK's Spinning Wheel Glass Mat.  I can understand why Diane keeps going back to it.  It is an easy pattern to remember because the stitch count is the same between picots throughout. But I did make a few mistakes, especially with the row of three rings because I kept joining them up together.

Here is my (first?) Spinning Wheel Glass Mat,

MK's Spinning Wheel Glass Mat, thread is HDT by Zarina

With the balance of the HDT, I started on the 'Amusement Doily' by Celtess. The link will take you to the pattern.

As you can see, it is not quite the doily as in the pattern.  I was running out of thread as I finished the 3rd round, so I made up the final round.  The actual 'Amusement Doily' is much more prettier than my aborted attempt.

Next is the update on the butterflies from  Adelheid Dangela's Tatted Butterflies that I started here and here.

Diana - with thread ends unhidden and turn into long tails

The next one is Elise and my attempt to tat in one pass.

Elise

The butterfly on the left is the one attempted in one pass incorporating additional techniques of split ring, split chain and alligator join.  The one on the right is the second attempt with two rounds.  I had some problems tatting Elise - the pattern is charted but the section of the body of the butterfly did not show the stitch count.  I had to refer to other charts in the book for similar looking body and follow the stitch count from there.

Finally, my double-point hooks arrived this week,

This double-point hook is the work of 'im in the garage, who also produce the pop-a-bobbin shuttles, which you can see here in JaneEb's blog. Jane calls them Hooks with hats. I am so happy with what I received.

I am busy tatting for an event in June.  More about that in another post.

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.

Taking a break again ....

.... because Mary came to visit ..... for a month ... he he he .....
Oh ... I am just taking a break from my other tatting stuff, like these

for my niece's wedding

 and this,

and instead I will be tatting with Mary.

"Mary who?"  you asked.  This Mary ...

If you have been following Martha's blog, you may have read about Mary's Traveling Book.
I already have the other three of Mary Konior's tatting books,

• A Pattern Book of Tatting
• Tatting Patterns, and
• Tatting with Visual Pattern.

This Tatting in Lace book is the elusive one.  It doesn't help at all that the price is going up and up each time I looked it up online.  I have already given up on ever getting it to complete my collection.
And then, Martha came up with the brilliant idea of sending her copy to travel round the world.  Its first stop is Malaysia, and I get to keep it for one month!

I started on a motif from the book as soon as I got it.

Pattern in the Cat's Cradle

I think one of the reasons why I like Mary Konior's designs, especially her motifs, is that when they are joined together, the resulting piece is totally a trick on the eye, mesmerising even ... if I can use the word. Another  example that I like is her Windmills design from the book, Tatting with Visual Patterns.   Jeff Hamilton piece is totally awesome.

Thank you Martha!

Treasure Chest

My daughter returned from the UK and brought me these,

Well, okay ... so I told her what to get. Still, to be able to flip through the pages ...  aahhh,  such inspirations.
(Okay, it doesn't take much to please me, LOL)

Close up of the books

 I now have three of Mary Konior's tatting books.  I hope to be able to get the fourth, Tatting in Lace, some day. I may have to splurge a bit to get that book, since it is becoming rarer and rarer to find now.

Books on Cardmaking

 I mentioned  that I want to try making cards with tatting embellishments, and she got me these books on cardmaking.  Oops! forgot to remove the price tag before snapping the picture.  But, at that price ... what a deal!

Glass beads various shapes and colour

And  glass beads in a mix of shades and size and shapes.  I need to plan carefully on how to used these beads to get the most out of them.

I didn't make these, but aren't they pretty?

Just a quick one that I just have to share.

I received this lovely shawl from Radha, a crafting buddy from Alor Setar, a city in the north of Malaysia.  I have only met Radha once before when she came down to Kuala Lumpur to meet with a group of us for a stitching bee.  During that meeting, Radha gave a demo of hairpin lace.  Hairpin lace is something that I have always wanted to try, especially with tatting thread, but never got round to really making the effort of learning how to.  I was very, very surprised to received this a few weeks back.  Thank you Radha.

This piece was also made by someone from Alor Setar.  Jacee and I got to know each other through the internet but we have never met.  I asked her if I can view some of her work but she does not have a blog.  Instead she sent me a picture of this 'Patchwork' mat made from a pattern by Mary Koinor.  It is too pretty not to show it to the rest of the tatting world, so I asked her if I can post the picture in my blog.  Lucky me and you, that she agreed.

Primrose Path Completed

The thread used for  this Mary Konior deasign are Altin Basak #50, 3051 for the flower motifs and 312 for the border.  The finished size is approximately 16.5cm across.  I was being very good while making this, I hide the ends immediately after each motif,

Diane made me do this!

LOL, but it is true!
Diane posted her finished Primrose Path in her blog and it looked stunning.  Her tatting is impeccable. I felt inspired to have a go at it .... again.  That's right! I have attempted this Mary Konior's pattern before, but was overwhelmed by the many ends that needed hiding.  You can read about my first attempt here.

I learned my lesson from that experience and have been careful not to leave my ends hanging around for long after I have completed my tatting.  Before starting on something new, I also make an effort to study the design/chart to see if I can incorporate use of split ring and split chain to avoid having the extra ends to hide. This have help in reducing the number of ends.

So, back to the point - this is my second attempt of the Primrose Path,

I am using Altin Basak #50 for this.  The first four sets of the flower motifs tatted up surprisingly fast.  I remember that Diane wrote (quoting Sharon) about being careful of where to start the first ring when using variegated thread. Except for a small white speck, I think I did quite well with the distribution of the shades for the centre of the design.

I am working on the chain rounds now and will show that next time.

Smileys used in this post are available from this site, FreeSmileys

Translate this blog

Now you can read this blog in several other languages besides in English.  I have added the Google Translate selection menu in the sidebar on the left.  The languages that I have chosen are based on the number of visitors to this blog.

I added the translation to Malay, my own language, just for the fun of seeing how the blog will look like, but decide to take it out.  The translation was out of context and quite literal in some places that require some mental acrobatics to understand.

I suppose this will also happen with the other languages, but something is better than nothing, right? he he he

To round off this post, here are some bookmarks from Mary Konior's pattern Read, Mark, Learn.

Mary Konior's Cloudburst

The Cloudburst is my first completed tatting after I was out for a few weeks due to the dengue fever.  I have not tidied the ends and it needs a bit of blocking and pressing.  The thread I used for this is Altin Basak #50.

As mentioned in my earlier post, the doily was tatted using the pop-a-bobbin shuttle.  I know it is a bit late to give my review of the shuttle, ... but I am going to do it anyway.

First of all, I was quite surprised that the shuttle was rather 'plump' and rounded.  Being used to the trimmer Clovers, I needed a little bit if time to adjust to the size.  But it didn't take very long for me to do it.  Among the thing that I like is that it doesn't have an appendage at the end like the Aero.

This is how I hold my shuttle.

When I tat, I slide the shuttle under and over the thread around my left hand.  Not having a protruding end certainly makes this shuttle easier to manage.

I also like having a hook at the other end, though not so much the type of hook that was attached to this shuttle.  The surface of the metal where it had been flattened to shape the hook rubbed against the thread and fuzzes it up a bit.  I can hear the rasping sound when the thread slides along the flattened surface.  Using a 3-ply thread of the Altin Basak for the doily did not help much either.  Some of the joining picots in the doily are very small picots.  I find it rather difficult to pull the thread with the hook for joining to the very small picot.

But the good news is that, Sally wrote in her blog that some of the issues raised about the shuttle by other tatters who have used it are being addressed.  One of which is the plumpness of the shuttle. Aside from the hook, I had no other problems with this shuttle and quite like using it.  But I am not sure if it will replace my favorite Clover shuttles.

Okay now ... about the doily.

I wrote before that I tatted the doily slightly different from the way the pattern was written.  The original pattern was such that eight separate motifs are joined together to make up the main body of the doily.  The finishing touch was filling up the centre with sets of chains. My aim was to be able to tat the main body of the doily in one round. To be able to do that I made a small change to the chain at the inner end of the individual motif.  This small change allows me to move to the next part of the doily without cutting the thread and starting over for the next motif. To illustrate it further, here is a picture of where I make the change.  If you have Mary Konior's book, A Pattern Book of Tatting, you can make a comparison with the original photo from the book.

 Because of the change in the work flow, I also had to change the starting point of some of the rings for ease of construction.  As with the original pattern, I finish this off with a series of chain for the middle part of the doily.

Before I sign off, I want to apologise to those who feel that what I had done amounted to desecrating the memory and creativity of Mary Konior. I assure you that this design will forever remain that of Mary Konior's.  What I did was finding a way out of what may tatters would rather avoid - hiding ends.