Long Picots

I don't normally use picot gauges when tatting especially when the patterns asks for regular picots, whether joining picots or decorative picots.  I don't even do graduated picots if the overall design of the pattern does not really need them.

But I do use gauges and measure my picots if they are really long ones.  Otherwise, why wold the pattern specify long picots. You can't do woven pcots without even-sized long picots like in this link here, http://www.georgiaseitz.com/2004/rietwovenbkmk.jpg. Or, work a tatted hairpin lace like this in Martha Ess' blog, http://marthas-tatting-blog.blogspot.my/2015/11/hairpin-lace-real-and-mock-kinda-long.html

I am currently working on a pattern where I have put in long picots. Very long picots, about 3in closed long picots. Now, I could easily cut a piece of card paper 3in wide and use that as my picot gauge, but I can imagne how cumbersome it would be holding holding a large piece of picot gauge.

And then, I had this idea where you can make different lengths of picot with a small picot gauge. Here's how.

This is the size of picots that I need in my patern, slightly over 3in.

Using a regular picot gauge, loop the thread over the picot gauge several times until you reach the length of the picot that you need.  In my case here, for the size of picot that I want, I looped six times over the width of the picot gauge.

While the loops are still on the picot gauge, make the next double stitch to lock the picot in.

You can remove the picot gauge after a few double stitches are made, or you can continue tatting to finish the ring, as I did here.

You can see how long the picots are when I removed the picot gauge.

I have used picot gauge #13 because that is the widest that I have so I don't have to loop the thread too many times.  You can use a smaller picot gauge to suit the size that you need.

And, that's it.

+---- + ----- + ----- + ----- + ---- +

A short update.

I have just completed Round 8 of the Jan Stawasz Masterpiece Doily, which I started in June 2016.

I honestly believe it will be another year beefore I finish this,

Daisy Picot Star - the Diagram

Here it is, the diagram/chart for the daisy picot star.

Here are some notes to the chart.

• Pattern uses the technique of Daisy picot rings. The daisy picot rings are shown in red in the diagram.
• Please refer to my blog post on how to make a daisy picot ring, https://tatsaway.blogspot.my/2007/10/daisy-picot-snowflake.html
• The double stitch count in all rings of the daisy picot cluster is 5-5.
• The space before, between and after each daisy picot ring is two double stitches, i.e. the 'ring' shown in green in the middle of the daisy picot rings cluster.
• The double stitch count in all chains are 8-8.
• If using two colours, you will need to do a shoe lace trick (SLT) to keep the two floating rings (green) the same colour. 

Daisy Picot Star

Okay, this is awkward.  My memory is failing me.

Have the pattern for this star been shared before?

I designed this when I was learning the daisy picot and that was in 2006!

I was going through my old patterns in my files and found this. It is possible that I saw one with similar design by another tatter and decided not to publish this.

Hmm .....

Going back in time, I ound my original post on this star here but no mention about sharing the pattern.

Happy New Year and a Winner

I know it is already into the 2nd week of 2017 and I have no excuses for the late new year greetings.
(Sheesh ..... I should write posts in this blog more often) 

Anyway,

December and into January was a rather busy month for me.  My daughter got enaged to be married, yeay! If you recall my post here, it entails some preparation for the ceremony required.  Unfortunately, there aren't many many pictures taken of me during the ceremony because I had not been well and I didn't look good to be photographed, :(

The week following the ceremony, we had workers come in to do some renovation to the house.  The knockings and bangings and drillings just did not give the right mood for thinking straight.  I sure need to think to write a meaningful post, ha ha ha ....

However, remember my previous post which mentioned about this blog being nominated by Craftree in the Best Tatting Blog category?

Guess what?

I won!!!

And, I was a month late in finding that out. The results were announced in December and I thought it was in January.  Well ... as mentioned above, December was a busy month and it slipped my mind.

So, late though it is, I wish to thank Craftree members for nominating my blog and all the voters who took time to vote for me.  Thank you for remembering me eventhough I did not update this blog reularly.

Congratulations to all the deserving winners in the other categories.
Well done to the other nominees. They are also winners in my eyes and in my heart.  The full list of winners and nominees for the Craftree Awards 2016 is here.

p.s.  This is photo-less post.  All photos are in my phone and I have not copied them to my laptop. Sorry about that.

Awards Nomination, Tatting and Crochet

I want to begin by thanking Craftree members for nominating my blog for the Craftree Awards 2016 in the best tatting blog category.  I feel so honoured to be shorlisted considering that all the other shortlisted nominees are of a higher standing than I am in the tatting world.

I have added a link in the left side-bar for you to vote for your favorite blog (not necessarily mine) and for all the other categories as well.  Please click on the banner and it will bring the page where you can enter your vote.  Voting is open to all and not limited to Craftree members.

I have progressed a bit with the JS Model 13 Doily since the last time I shared my status here.

I am still on Round VII of the doily with another four repeats to complete the round.

And the reason for the short time spent tatting are these -

Small drawstring pouches dec0rated with felt flowers to be filled with favors.

I tore an old sheet into 1in strips to make rag yarns,

and crocheted into a floor rug.

I crocheted a lap blanket using up yarns from my stash

A close-up of the rochet stitches

and lastly, I tried Tunisian crochet and found that I am enjoying it very much.  There are so many types of stitches that I want to try and experiment with.

I do have a tatting project planned that I want to start as soon as possible, if the crocheting is not distracting me from it.

Took a break

I took a break from tatting to do other things. Specifically, I went for a week's holiday in Perth, Australia.
Here are some photos of my time spent in Perth and places around it.

View of the city taken fom the air as the plane approaches to land.

I am not a shopping person, so while the rest of the group went to look at the shops, my sister and I took a stroll in the Stirling Gardens.

I wish I could have spen more time along the narrow roads of Freemantle and in the quaint little shops, but here is the customary post outside the Freemantle Markets.  Another sister photo-bombed me here but she is looking so cute doing it, I let her be.

The Pinnacles is one place that I would highly recommend to anyone visiting Perth.  It is worth the 2hr 45min drive up, and there are many other interesting places that you can stop at along the way. 

The obligatory photo at Kings Park for an expansive view of Perth city and of the ocean.

On our last day, before leaving for the airport, we stopped to see the tulips at Araluen Botanic Park.  It was still very early spring/late winter and we are not sure if the tulips have bloomed. We were rewarded with some gorgeous flowers in various colour.  This photo is my favorite from the ones that I took.

One last photo at Araluen, showing the stream in the background.

Oh, also tasted the apple strudel touted as the best apple strudel in Australia. That went too fast, no one remembers to take a photo of it, he he he.

Back home, I continued with Round VI of the JS mammoth doily.  I had finished half-way of the round before the break.

Here is Round VI, done

I came back from the holidays in time for the closing ceremony of the Rio Olympics. Wasn't it wonderful that they had included a tribute to lacemakers in the ceremony?

Most of my crochets had been with thread, hence all my hooks are small-sized ones that I also use for making joins in tatting.  But I have some stash of yarns from long ago that I wanted to use up.  Bought a pack of larger sizes of hooks and started on this. It may be a scarf, or something else. I have not decided.

Round V

I was so happy to come to the end of Round V.  So happy, in fact that I made a small mistake. I forgot to tat over tail of the thread at the beginning of the last motif.

It may seem strange that I have ends to hide at the beginning since I am using only white throughout hence I could easily start with CTM.

Okay, let me explain. Maybe someone may find this logical or useful.

I am using two shuttles and I am not measuring the thread for each motif of Round V.  I use whatever balance in the shuttle to continue for the next motif.
For each motif of Round V, I did start with a CTM every time but only at the first ring of the clover. I just pulled enough thread from one shuttle and finger-tatted the first ring. Then I added thread from the other shuttle for the next ring of the clover, tatting over the tail of the thread of the first ring. I should have tatted over the thread end of the second ring in the third ring, but I forgot to do that, and that end is only an inch long.

So, it is not technically a mistake but more of an inconvenience.  I almost always sew in my ends.  In this case, there was a lot of threading and re-threading of that one inch long thread to finish off this round.
Oh, I have to say that I have been good and sewing in the ends of the 12 motifs, doing it straightaway after each motif is done.

And here is the full photo as at Round V.

It is now about 27cm wide or 10.5 inches.

Off to Round VI!