Tatskool Tats!

Yup, you finally get to see some tatting!

Way back in the summer I fell in love....

with a new design.

It came to me via the Online Tatting Class, and is

by Petra Tornack-Zimmermann.

She has recently published her book 

Happy Occhi.

A book of square motifs.

The design that I fell in love with is Sonnenschein....it has certainly been my sunshine.

Thank you so much Petra, your book is on my to get list.

The very last one that I have tatted is in my favourite colour of all time...

Rainbow Bright of course.

But lets go back to the beginning.....

.....the very first one that I tried....

...led me to shout...

PENDANT

BEADS!

Because it had such eye catching negative space.

The second one had the beads but it just didn't have the WOW factor.

 

Nothing for it but to try my HDT .....

SweetShop was my first choice...oh how I love this thread.

The beads are 3 cut crystal and they sparkle so much.

Sorry didn't quite get the colours right, better in photo below.

Oh! SweetShop why do I love you so much.....

because you go with everything....

....for instance, I randomly (as if) selected a T Shirt and woweee...look at this...

isn't that amazing?
More pendants to show you soon.

Easter Eggstravaganza 15!

Tatted Easter Eggs by Kirsten Wind Hansen

Onwards and upwards!

Easter Egg number 15 had left me a bit cold when I first saw it...like so many of the designs in this book! I don't know why these designs didn't appeal to me...must be the lack of colour.

Until I saw what others had done with it.....Barbara Gordon had tatted a white butterfly with a variegated surround. Umi and Tsuru had tatted a variegated pink butterfly with a pale green surround.

Ok then...on to the practice piece....I forgot to make the joining picot on the antennae so mine are a bit too short. the dimpled rings were difficult to close....I could have made them a different way but decided to stick to Kirtsen's pattern...for now!

The rings in the trefoils are not connected so tend not to lie very flat...really needed blocking to put on my tree.

For the next one I chose to tat the butterfly in my Blue Lagoon HDT with flowers round the outside in my Berry Burst HDT and chains in my  Daffodil Green HDT all in Lizbeth 40 and it looks lovely and very delicate.

I like this a lot. What a difference using different colours makes.

Easter Eggstravaganza 14!

Tatted Easter Eggs by Kirsten Wind Hansen

 Easter Egg number 14 had a new challenge hidden up it's sleeve...

....Roll Tatting.....

something that I have never tried before.

Of course i went straight away to Google to see what I could find out about this technique.

I found instructions from Jennifer Williams and Jane Eborall and a very recent blog post by Jon entitled
Rolling! Rolling! Rolling off the Shuttle

followed by an even more interesting post 

Rolling a Stumpy

she points to a video by 

Karen Cabrera's video 

It was well worth a look but i did find her method rather overcomplicated. 

So Off i went armed with this knowledge and of course Kirsten's explanation in her book.

Well

it was really easy..once I held on tight to the roll stitches that I had made. 

Karen's video was great for showing how quickly they can unroll!

Time now for some fun!

I tatted the inner chain in My Daffodil Green  and the rings in my  Just Daffodils HDT.

 It looks so pretty, one of my favourite colour combinations.

This one was tatted in Coats Mercer size 30.

Here is a size comparison...

 Here is a close up of my roll tatting

I am dying to try it on something else now, Jon's idea of Kersti's  Stumpy sounds great. 

I have made that before.

The Mary Konior Lupins look great too. 

Easter Eggstravaganza 13!

Tatted Easter Eggs by Kirsten Wind Hansen

Number 13 unlucky for some!

But it worked a treat for me!

Made in one round using a split ring, it finishes with three rows of chains.

Thought that this would look nice with the chains in a different colour

This one has them in Coats Floretta 20 in a deep raspberry variagation.

Don't like this thread much as it's a 3 cord thread, but the colours are pretty.

Next thought was to build another dessert!! using my own HDT.

I started with my Vanilla Ice Cream in the center.

The chains are in

my Raspberry Juice,

Blackberry Juice

and

Blueberry Juice.

All the solid colours from my Berry Burst thread.

Looks prettier in real life without the white background.

I didn't even get time to block these last two, but they came out pretty firm to start with.
Multicoloured ones really make the inner round stand out don't they?
I think this design would be lovely on the tree with a jewel hanging inside it.

Easter Eggstravaganza 12!

Tatted Easter Eggs by Kirsten Wind Hansen

Number 12 has  bugged me for some time!

It wasn't the tatting that was the problem

it was finishing off the egg with a final round of crochet.

It's not even that I don't know how to crochet, I haven't done it for a long time,but I was sure I wouldn't have forgotten the basics.

I guess it was just that the instructions didn't make a lot of sense to me, even tho' they were perfectly correct.

I intended to scan the first round of the egg with it's fringe of picots round the edge...looked pretty.

I had measured the picots with a picot gauge to get this fringe even enough to crochet round. I used 9mm measured horizontally.

But I forgot!

When I saw that Barbara Gordon has succeeded then I was eager to pick up my discarded egg again!

My problem begins with.....do I need to use a extra thread to crochet with or is it really as simple as Kirsten says.....

well yes it seemed that it really was that simple....

so my next problem was...what do I do when I get to the end and have a final loop on my crochet hook????

anyone got the answer????

My final loop actually is just lying there not attached and not sew in and it hasn't come undone.....but that's not really good enough.

I contemplate putting in a magic thread to pull it thro'...but that wouldn't work with a loop!

Do I have to sew it in with matching fine thread.

Anyway at the moment I am not feeling like making another one!

Does look pretty tho'!

Easter Eggstravaganza 11!

Tatted Easter Eggs by Kirsten Wind Hansen

On to number 11

This looked easy until I took a closer look at how it was made.....it was just a bit tricky to keep one stitch flipped...nuff said...!

Tatted in Flora 20 I used beads from my selection pack of silver lined size 8 beads.

I thought that I had chose all turquoise beads until i came to tat in the daylight last weekend...more about that later!...and found that there were two different greens also in the.....so I continued in the same vein to make it look natural!

Haven't got round to tatting this one again either...but it would look lovely in.....and.....and......

Easter Eggstravaganza 10!

Tatted Easter Eggs by Kirsten Wind Hansen
Number 10 looked STUNNING
but is it easy to tat?
This was my first time tatting with 2 shuttles and 2 balls.
The big problem was the ball threads getting tangled.
This needed a little help from some transparent tape sent to me by Tatting Goddess a few years ago, wind a piece round the ball and it sticks to itself and can be removed easily. I have no idea what it is called or where to get more.
It also needed a great deal of organisation to switch from one colour to the next placing the shuttle and ball out of the way......and a great deal of concentration at first to make sure that the chains lay on top of each other in the correct order. I got this wrong in the very first chain but think it's a great feature to make a specific top to the egg motif!!

The rings are joined through each other and by the time I got to the last two sets of rings to join I was stumped as to how to do this....I untatted these rings at least 4 times and then put the motif to one side in frustration.....was going to ask for your advice!
But last night I saw a comment that Barbara Gordon of Barbara's 25 motif challenge had left for me on my Egg No 1 post, saying that she was also tatting all the Easter Eggs in the book.
So I zoomed over to her blog and low and behold there were joys galore. If you like my egss then you will love hers too. She has got further than me and finished 15 already.
Thank you Barbara for your inspiration to keep going.

Thank you also for giving the answer to my problem. You have to tat both rings at the same time....not easy....going backwards and forwards to each ring to tat a bit more and get the joins interwoven thro' each ring.
I can assure you that it's every bit as difficult as it sounds.
But the result is stupendous.

can you see the error at the very top......makes a great hanger!
I can see this egg in many different colourways ....will i be doing it again....like Barbara not anytime soon!!

Easter Eggstravaganza 9!

Tatted Easter Eggs by Kirsten Wind Hansen

If I was beginning to get a little jaded then Number 9 raised my spirits...

it's a little cracker.
I HAD to tat this in 2 colours at the very beginning.

Flora 20.

Second one is in Lizbeth 40 in my Berry Burst with white and lemon.

I am afraid we are back to food again!
It was meant to represent Berry Burst dessert with vanilla ice cream topped with custard!
Then of course I wondered what it would look like with the colours in a different order....
so here is dessert No 2.

 This one has the fruit in the middle in a solid block with the ice cream and custard round the outside.
I am hard pushed to say which of these I like the best. I like the solid block of Berries better in the middle but on the other hand I like the contrast on the outside of the one with the custard in the middle.mmm!
Funny how that contrast makes that one look bigger as your eyes are drawn to the outside.
These eggs have a natural tendency to curve upwards so I had to squash them on the scanner...and then photograph them to show this curve which is very pleasant.

With the center filled in this would make a cracking little hat pattern.

Easter Eggstravaganza 7!

mmm this was scheduled to be published before No 8...

oh well, better late than never!
Tatted Easter Eggs by Kirsten Wind Hansen

Number 7 tatted in plain Fora 20 looks like an egg to me.

Decided to tat it in three colours for my second attempt.

Really shows up the design and the silver lined largeish beads add that bit of bling.

Nice one!

Easter Eggstravaganza 8!

Tatted Easter Eggs by Kirsten Wind Hansen

Egg number 8 ......

was a pain to tat! All those twisted chains.

By the time I had them finished I had had enough.
It's just the same as No 7 but twisted chains and another layer of them.

Sorry but I haven't repeated this one...yet...tho i do think it would look pretty in different colours.

This is in Flora 20 and the whole egg is a bit too big for me at 3.5inches top to bottom.

Looks pretty tho' now that I see it on the screen.

Easter Eggstravaganza 6!

Tatted Easter Eggs by Kirsten Wind Hansen

Egg Number 6 looks pretty basic when tatted in one plain colour.....

.....but when tatted in a variegated thread it zings.

It's Lizbeth 20 in Caribbean and matching Turquoise. The toning silver lined turquoise beads really sparkle even tho they aren't faceted.

The pattern tatted in one colour takes about 3.6m on the shuttle and 2.5m on the ball.....unless you want bigger picots.

They measure about 3inches top to bottom and I think would be nicer in a finer thread for my tree.

Easter Eggstravaganza 5!

Tatted Easter Eggs by Kirsten Wind Hansen

I must admit that when I first got this book I was not all that struck by it. A lot of patterns looked much the same as a lot of other motifs only blocked to be egg shaped!

But once I got into tatting the patterns numerically instead of cherry picking my favourites, they began to grow on me and I wanted to give it a fair go! I won't have time to tat every design several times as I would like to, but I will tat as many variations as time allows.

I hope it won't be quantity rather than quality!

No 5 looks pretty ordinary until I began to tat it and then its beauty hit me.

Even my trial is lovely.

I should have scanned this against a black background before I stiffened and shaped it.

I suppressed the desire to take it in reverse to see what it would look like!

Mmmmm! I thought what about making this look like an egg with the yolk in the center and the white on the outside.

I made the picots graduated to make the white a bit more fluffy.

But it's not egg like enough....thought process gets going....why not give it and eggshell.

Cool idea...so I got out an egg and compared it to my new selection of browns in my Gingerbread range.......and Cinnamon won.

Added some beads to fill in the yolky center a little.

Changed the stitch count of the yolk quite by accident...wondered why it had little peaks in the middle and added an outer round of cinnamon chains.

Now I need to know what it would have looked like if I had tatted the correct/original stitch count!

It looks so like a cream Easter Egg

I LOVE THIS BOOK!

This design has so much more potential to explore.

The outer round of chains finishes it off to perfection.

Stiffened and shaped....but not the third one

As as addendum to this....my lassies were tatting this design (from their books) when two of them shrieked 

'Oh No'

They had both joined the rings together in the inner round. One of them hadn't got very far, the other had several rings made and was blowed if she was going to untat!

We told her that it wasn't a mistake, rather a new pattern!

She went home having got this far...

.......and returned two weeks later with this little beauty.

Isn't that lovely and the mix of yellow and orange beads is beautiful.
the little Easter chicks were impressed too.

Easter Eggstravaganza 4!

Here comes Egg No 4 from Tatted Easter Eggs a great little book from Kirsten Wind Hansen.

Trial in Flora 20.

Second one in Lizbeth 20...Autumn Spice and Salmon with gold beads.

This one has one less repeat of rings and chains because I miscalculated my thread amount....looks nice tho'. Smaller that the first one as well because Lizbeth 20 tats up smaller.

Shaped and stiffened they look rather odd!

These are definitely going to be flattened!

Most of the eggs would look great in a finer thread.

Easter Eggstravaganza 3!

On to Easter Egg No 3 from Kirsten Wind Hansen's book Tatted Easter Eggs.

First try out...

Second one...

...in Flora 20 Orange and my Wedding Teal Blue and little goldey brown beads. Wowee! doesn't it look different.

Easter Eggstravaganza 2!

The second design the the book Tatted Easter Eggs by Kirsten Wind Hansen is very much like the first one.The difference being the addition of an extra ring at the base of the egg and josephine knots all around the edge. 

Great practise doing josephine knots. I prefer to use the second half stitch for these and to pass the shuttle around the thread after every  five half knots.

First trial looks like this ....

I must admit that the additional ring at the bottom really foxed me! Try as I might to remember to make it after I had tatted the one above  I forgot and on the second attempt I still forgot! So the ring is stitched on with fine thread.

For my second one I was dying to use my new batch of Raspberry Ripple with Vanilla...

 This one does look prettier in real life....hard to capture. this one is tatted in size 30.

I did stiffen and shape these...

This shows the colours much better.

Thank you so much to those who took the trouble to give their opinion on whether to shape the eggs or not. I tend to agree that they would look better flat hanging on the tree and have flattened my no 1 eggs.

Funnily enough when I asked my tatting lassies for their opinion every one said 'shape them' and are going to shape theirs.

In size 20 they take about 3.75m on each shuttle.

Easter Eggstravaganza 1!

Happy Easter to all my friends

I intended to start writing this series of posts well before Easter but as you all know time runs away so quickly.

This is our last tat day and one of my lassies brought us all Easter chicks from her trip to Holland.

Gorgeous aren't they?

IsDihara asked if we have special chocolatey goodies for Easter here.

We have the usual Eggs, either  shells only or filled with cream/toffee etc. Also lots of Chocolate Bunnies and Chicks. 

Back to tatting.....this year I resolved to tat something from the multitude of tatting books that I have never used

This time it was the turn of another of the wonderful books published by Akacia

Tatting Easter Eggs by Kirsten Wind Hansen

There are 24 designs in this inexpensive book. Black and white photos and great diagrams but the minimum of instruction for each design...except for the instructions at the beginning of the book.

I intended in my own silly way to tat my way through the book in order starting at number one and finishing at Easter or when I ran out of enthusiasm...which ever came first!

 There is one design which particularly takes my fancy and my friend urge me to skip ahead to it.....should I, will I...

So Staring with 

Easter Egg No 1

Once again I am doing trials of all the eggs in the same thread...I love doing that...not only to it let me work out how much thread to use when I use my good stuff...but it lets the design show through on each different pattern.

Once again I must say

PLEASE DO NOT USE MY PHOTOS TO TRY TO TAT THE PATTERNS

A LOT OF TIME AND EFFORT HAS GONE INTO DESIGNING THEM
PLEASE IF YOU LIKE THEM

BUY THE BOOK

This is where I show you my first mistake!!!

I made too many rings in the central section, didn't realise until I was this far round in the outer section and wondered why it didn't look right!

 

Memo to self...look more carefully at the diagram!

Second try in a pretty melon and light green Flora 20

Third one is in a cherry coloured Flora 20 with Robin's egg blue Flora contrast and Rainbow Ruby beads size 11. The beads made the whole egg come out a little larger.

For my fourth egg I used my latest dye batch of Berry Burst HDT. I had been asked by a friend in UK to dye this again. It's quite difficult to dye due to the intensity of the colour, getting even and complete penetration of the dye is difficult and it has to be perfect for me!

The beads are purple lined the thread is size 30.

The eggs made in Flora 20 measure about 2 inches.

Thread used was shuttle , 3.6m and Shuttle 2.2 m when using all one colour.

There will be more eggs in Berry Burst later .

It's very much a summer fruits colour.....raspberries,redcurrants,cranberries,loganberries and strawberries, add in the purples of bilberries and blackcurrants and then the blues of blackberries and blueberries.....gosh making my mouth water again.....how come my dyeing seems to be mainly about food!

I stiffened the eggs on a polystyrene egg and hung them on my tree.

I am not sure if I like them shaped or not...what do you think?

This is day one of my Easter Egg tree....the real eggs on the tree I showed first in 2009 follow the link to see them....not sure if I ever showed you the others.