I got this idea from a post by Tatting Chic where she compared bloggers to butterflies, flitting from post to post. I enjoy flitting very much and have gotten unwitting advice on projects I have worked on as well as ideas to dream over.
My butterfly is #210 from The Complete Book of Tatting by Rebecca Jones.
As a personal aside, I feel much like the heroine in an old fashioned melodrama at the point in the story where she says to the hero something along the lines of, "No, I never got your telegram! Oh, if only I had KNOWN! How much time we have wasted apart!" Only I'm saying it to my tatting shuttle...
You see, last night I figured out that eight years ago when I first picked up a shuttle to try to learn to tat, I fell victim to the faulty assumption that words have meaning. When I tried to do motifs that required a twisted picot join at the end I winded up with more than a twisted join, more like a twisted mess. I would read and reread my beginning tatting book (which shall remain nameless) and do it just as the words on the page SAID to do... The picture didn't mean as much to me, because my thread was too fine to see an itty bitty join. Until last night, when my hero beckoned to me from the shelf where he sits...
Good looking fellow, huh? Mr. MAGnificent helped me realize the words didn't match the illustrations and as a result my butterfly's twisted picot join laid flat and my butterfly is a thing of beauty instead of the stuff of nightmares.
And now we will live happily ever after.
The End
6 comments:
That is a sweet image you made there with the tatted butterfly and the flowers!
I know exactly what you mean about the words not meaning much. I remember trying to make a rosette and joining right where the patterns SAID to and I ended up with a garbled mess of chains. I remember that my Mother understood that since tatting is so rare they don't have good editors like they do with crochet or knitting...hence...no one to check on what is being written and if it even makes sense. She helped me look at the picture and make my tatting look like the picture without paying mind to the non-sense pattern. She couldn't even tat, herself! She opened a whole world of vintage patterns for me with that.
I applaud the modern tatting designers who take the time to have test-tatters proof read the pattern and see if the design is tat-able from that.
Kudo's to your hubby for helping you understand that the pattern what's the mess...not your tatting.
Yep, i have an old spiral bound basic tatting book. Although the pictures are very good, you can tell there wasn't much budget. The layout is a little awkward. Still, I guess I just didn't have enough confidence to question the book and assumed the problem lay with me. I have been more excited about tatting this go 'round because I am UNDERSTANDING it better.
ANN
LOL! I guess when you were talking about your "hero" you weren't necessarily talking about a hubby, LOL! Don't mind me...I'm on pain medication...that's my excuse today!
Well yes, I WAS talking about my magnifying glass (which I need more and more and more), but you got me thinking and I do believe the man about the house might not really mind if I started calling him Mr. Magnificent! :)
I'm sorry you're not feeling well. I hope tomorrow is a better day!
Ann
You are so funny! Enjoy your new-found visionary pal!
I was looking up stuff about the dreaded twisted picot just yesterday. I do not know where I copied this from, so apologies to the author for non-acknowledgment:
"How to avoid a twisted picot
With some motifs, the last picot to be joined ends up in just the right place and it's easy to complete the round. For right-handed people, that's when the picot is on the left side of your working thread. Just grab the picot and make the join.
However, on some motifs, the last picot is on the right side of the working thread when you're ready to make the join. The first time I came across this, I merely folded my tatting over so that the picot was in the right place and made the join. Oh, I was unhappy when I found what it did! When I flattened the piece, the picot twisted!
Here's how to avoid this mishap.
You will need a small crochet hook to do this. When you're ready to make the join, fold your tatting over so that the picot is in the right place to make the join. Put your crochet hook through the picot from the back, grab the working thread, and pull it through. Finish your join, then turn your tatting flat so you can double-check that the picot doesn't twist. "
I think this might do the trick for me - hope you also find it useful, though the butterfly looks wunderbar! Fox : )
Thank you Fox!
THAT is what my book SHOULD have said because THAT is what was SHOWN in the picture when buddy boy (Mr. Mag) and I looked more closely. Thank you! I am going to print this out and put it on that page, lest I forget. Shuttle Baby and I don't want to waste another precious minute! :)
Ann
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