Rainbow Snowflakes

Remember a couple of posts ago when I was given the One Sweet Blog Award by TattingChic.........



.......and I said that I would award it to anyone who showed a real rainbow snowflake on their blog.

Well the nominees are coming in......
First to show was Snowy with Pirouette from Jon Yusoff's book Tatted Snowflake Collection .



The fabulous thing about this..well one of the fabulous things is that the repeat in the thread worked exactly one point of the snowflake.....now before you all get toooo excited I must warn you that Snowy tats in size 80 and so you probably wouldn't get the same effect in a thicker thread...you might get something just as good tho.

I sent the award over to Snowy but she ducked and it came back to me like a boomerang!! but she deserved it anyway!!

Next is Laura who tatted the most gorgeous Snowflake Rose from Denise Munoz's Book of Snowflake Roses.




Isn't that just something! I HAVE to get that book.
Laura also test tatted my Tumbling Snowflake pattern and made a lovely job of it.



Laura definately deserves the one Sweet Blog Award. Incidentely if anyone would like my pattern before I get it on to my website just drop me a line and it's yours. It makes me feel so good to be able to give something back to the tatting community for all the joy it gives me.

Then we have Steph who tatted the same Rose Snowflake after she has seen Laura's




but before that she has shown two more



The spiral is from thisntat the star is from Kaye B. Judt's book, Oh My Stars!

and if that's not enough to get the award she tatted my Tumbling Snowflake..thanks Steph..take a bow and an award.



I have one more to show you, tatted by my friend Jackie in Rainbow Bright and Blue Lagoon, It is Milky Way from Jon's book



It looks a little different as there was a bit of shoelace tricking to get the inner chains in Blue Lagoon, as she wanted the rainbow only to be round the outside. Lovely isn't it?

Look at the cool way she winds her thread, she couldn't help it...and she can see at a glance how many yards she has left!!



Are there any more rainbow snowflakes out there that I have missed??????/

Snowflakes and Starfish

Story of the Rainbow Snowflake and the Starfish

Way back in May I was supervising a really boring exam....boring in that it really couldn't take a lot of walking up and down.During these exams sitting down, it is often hard to stay awake and especially to keep my eyes open. I need something to stimulate my brain into active thought.
So I was flipping through Elgiva Nichols-Tatting Techniques book, looking I guess for inspiration.
I got as far as page 31 with the rings and chains motif that she describes as a Scroll. I was taken by the effect of the inward facing chain and outward facing rings. I started to doodle what it might become.

Now anybody who know me knows that I am not original, I find it very hard to design....anything! Maybe I don't try hard enough or maybe it's because there are so many patterns out there that I want to make. I have only two original patterns to my name and they can be found on my website. Unlike so many of you, my head is not buzzing with designs all trying to get out. But it is full of the desire to make things and to make them to the best of my ability....and it always has been.

Well, after a lot of attempts I had a workable, I thought, 6 point snowflake that didn't remind me of anything that I had ever seen before. It did somewhat resemble a starfish with its long unadorned arms and also reminded me somewhat of the 3 legged Isle of Man logo. It looked like it was going to tumble head over heels so I called it Tumbling Snowflake.....

and forgot about it!

Six months latter while looking for something to tat that was my own and could be used to show of my Rainbow Bright thread I came across my design.....

and I was off!!

I got the stitch count right at my first attempt with just a tiny trial in white and then plunged in with Rainbow Bright as I was itching to see what it was going to look like.

Oh! I loved it from the very first stitch.

Showed it to hubby and he said that it didn’t look like a snowflake but a Starfish…….well he would think that wouldn’t he!!.......



and so my starfish was torn assunder…....well figuratively speaking! one half went to make a new Snowflake and the other a Starfish!!

THE SNOWFLAKE!!

The inward facing curve following the central inward curve, that I really, really liked was replaced by an outward facing curve making it more snowflake than starfish.
The tips of the arms lost the little ring and gained 4 beads.

TUMBLING SNOWFLAKE was born!!



Oh my!! I LOVE IT!! If you could only see how those gold beads sparkle.
I really like the way that it shows off Rainbow Bright.... I know that I could have added frilly picots but I like it's simplicity. I know that it looks simple, basic and straightforward but I LOVE IT and honestly haven't been able to find a snowflake like it on the net or in my collection of books. It came totally out of my head after the initial stimulus of the inner circle from Elgiva Nicolls...but I know that doesn't make it mine if someone claims that they have designed it before.

Look at it on a black background...... I like the effect of all the circles that the chains make.





THE STARFISH!!

Well he keeps the inward facing chains because that what makes him a starfish. But he loses an arm…......ouch!! The arms are made more pointy by using the shoelace trick recommended by Jon Yusoff.



On black background he is a wow!




But what kind of starfish is he…….Linkia suggests hubby ...…we look it up…it’s a beautiful cobalt blue…but its arms are really rather too long in proportion to my central disc.

Now I know some people are going to say that it doesn't matter what kind of starfish it is...but I am a Zoologist and to create something that actually looks like a named animal is the cream on the cake to me.

What about Protoreaster linkii The Red Knobbed Starfish………he says....gosh it really looks like this one.



I am sorry that I couldn't contact the owner of this photograph so I hope that they won't mind my using it.



This photo is copyright free....

Red-knobbed Starfish Protoreaster linckii at Bristol Zoo Aquarium, Bristol, England.
It looks as though I’ve propped this animal at the best photographic angle, in fact it was like this when I approached the tank (to my delight!).

Photographed by Adrian Pingstone in December 2005 and released to the public domain.

So made it in red and cream then changed the outer ring to a Josephine ring a la method of Jane Eborall and am happy with it.



It looks so different when made in 2 colours.
But with beads it is GORGEOUS and so Starfish like...I am amazed! With a little bit of computer jiggery pokery he really looks like he is on sand in a rock pool...well he does to me!!



Pile 3 on top of each other, a little computer colour change and I have a multi armed starfish reminiscent of the Crown of Thorns starfish, such a nuisance on so many coral reefs.



If nobody claims these pattern as theirs I will post them on on my website as my Christmas present to you all. So far the gurus that I sent the pattern to don't recognise it but that means nothing...if I am stepping on anyones toes, I humbly apologise.

Number 25. Tatting a Christmas Camel and a Snowflake for you.

Well here I am at Number 25 the end of my challenge and in just under a year. There were times when I thought that I would never finish it. I finally did have to admit that I just didn't have time to tat all the patterns from different, and even the same designer for each animal, but maybe some of them will be revisited later.

I have enjoyed this so much, it has focused my tatting time to a great degree, tho' I have managed to tat a wealth of other things too. The challenge has also made me look more closely at patterns and developed my ability to change them a little. It was so nice that Jane liked my changes to her, flamingo, meercat and pig so much that she even published them as variations to her patterns. Who knows one day I may even design an animal of my own....only please don't hold your breath.
I hope that you have enjoyed reading this blog half as much as I have enjoyed writing it and that my sometimes zany humour added to it!

My final animal is a Camel, dressed up in all his finery for Christmas.
He brings with him my Christmas wishes for all my tatting friends whose number is growing by the minute.



This is the most fabulous pattern and was designed by Dolly Hollander, downloaded from the net a few years ago I am not sure where you can find it now. I blocked the middle red/green section to come out in a 3D like bowl shape and it looks fab in the deep frame.

My one was tatted in size 10 thread Flora, he stands about 11cm tall and 14cm wide. I did start tatting him in Flora 20 but he is now a UFO!!

Did I say something about a snowflake?!?!?!?
Well my brain has begun to work at last and I have designed a snowflake, my Christmas gift to you all, to give back just a tiny fraction what the tatting community has given to me. Hope you will like it.

A couple of years ago I bought a selection of large sequins so that I could tat Jane Eborall's Sequin mobile. Large sequins were very hard to find and still are. Thinking about what I could do for Christmas this year I remembered these sequins and dug them out, I also remembered that I had seen in Karey Solomon's 'Tatting Times' that Sue Hanson had made a mini flake on a sequin. Mmmm that looked way to hard to start with, but she did say that it was possible to punch a bigger hole in a sequin. She had used a 10mm sequin and I had a packet of those in a gorgeous gold holographic material and so off I went to design something simple, really simple. I have since seen Jennifer Williams's Christmas bauble on a sequin but this had not influenced me and I don't think it is all that similar to my design being that all simple designs by their very nature are bound to be similar to many others. All this preamble is to say that I believe that this is truly my own design but if I have trodden on anyones toes it was unintentional.





I have called it Scintillating Snowflake 'cos that's just what it does.

You will need a 10mm sequin...holographic if possible.
I tried using a punch to enlarge the hole but my punches were too blunt. The best way that I found was to use a round needle file, amazing how tools from another craft come in useful. I used to use these small files as part of enamelling on copper.

Just keep twisting the file in the hole in the sequin until it is the right size. Turn the sequin over from time to time to get a fairly clean hole. Could have made a much larger hole if necessary with this method.




It should now look like the second image.



The thread used was Coats Mercer Anchor size 20.
You need 2 shuttles wound continuous thread. I am giving the amounts of thread that I needed. Bear in mind that your thread may be thicker than mine and that I am a tight tatter. I really like to know how much thread to use so this will give you a fair idea.
Shuttle 1 needs about 85cm and 6 beads
Shuttle 2 needs about 1.25m and 18 beads.

Abreviations
Bead up Bead down...bring a bead from the back of the hand and another from the shuttle.
DNRW...Do not reverse work
Join into sequin....join into the sequin by pulling the thread round your hand through the hole from the back to the front and down past the edge of the sequin. Pass the shuttle through and tighten until the core thread lies at the edge of the sequin, when tatting the next stitch make sure that the core thread still lies neatly at the edge of the sequin.



*R 3 - join into sequin - 3 Cl and RW.

Bring a bead from Sh 2 to lie at the base of the ring then
Ch 6 DNRW

Throw off a ring using Sh2, place a bead round the hand.
R 3 - B up B down - 3 Cl DNRW

Bring a bead from Sh1
Ch 6 RW *

Repeat from* to* 5 times

Cut leaving a few inches to make the hanger. Tie into the base of the first chain making sure that the bead lies between the first and last chain. Tie a knot to make the hanger at the desired length. I personally prefer to thread a fine thread through on the the beads so that it hangs from a point. I tie the ends from the tatting in a reef knot, applying the tiniest drop of PVA glue after the first part of the knot. Pull it really tight and cut very close and the knot is hardly visible.

I also have one variation which looks pretty too.



This one uses the same amount on shuttle and ball(or sh2 if you prefer) 85cm I used.
You will need 6 beads on the shuttle and 24 on the ball thread.

The only difference in the pattern is that instead of throwing a ring off the chain you make a beaded picot with 3 beads from the ball and one from the shuttle (3B up 1B down).

Last year I showed you my antique tree filled with tatting(click on the link to Christmas). This year it is the turn of my tiny tree. This also is quite old and belonged to my parents.



Only 17 inches high it is trimmed with mini snowflakes and tiny, tiny glass baubles.


Enjoy.
HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

Oh and I think that I will have to continue this challenge....50 animals here I come!!!

STOP PRESS.....21st December....If you have been reading the comments you will be delighted to know that Riet Surtel and Tami Drader have come up with the url to the Camel pattern complete with picture....here it is.