Finished!!! No 15 Radiance.

Here it is the last one from Jon's book....Radiance and it has to be one of my favorites.



By the time I got to Tatting it in Rainbow I had realised that Jon had tatted the central ring and showed the wrong side...maybe for a reason as it looked so much nicer that my white one with right side showing.



This one looks BEAUTIFUL. The long picots in the middle really set off the puter round.



In size 20 radiance took Sh 1, 3 metres, Sh2, 3.8 metres

Well that's that...I did it. This is the first time I have ever tatted my way through an entire book, let alone tat an entire book in the same colours.

What an experience it has been and it's hard to pick out my favorites. If they weren't all on my tree I would lay them all out together and photograph them...maybe after the New Year.

Favorites...Radiance, Carrousel, Oasis. Sweet Rose, Circle of Crowns,Sunburst, Milky way, Aladdin.

Conclusion....Jon's book Snowflakes Collection,is well worth buying.

No 14. Pirouette and a party! and another flake.

My penultimate snowflake from Jon's book is Pirouette.

First in white.....



then in Rainbow....



and on black.



A picture on blogger gives no indication of size, unless you put an object in to show the scale. So what you can't see is that I tatted the white one in size 20 and it's big! It measures 3 3/4 inches(9cm), I tatted it again in Rainbow in size 60 and that measures 2 3/4inches (7cm) and looks so different.



I didn't really like the big white one much but when I tatted it in 60 and in Rainbow it suddenly came to life, the colour seemed to be concentrated in the finer thread...maybe I should do a white one in fine thread!

Remember I showed you the one that Snowy tatted in Rainbow in 80 and the colour was a perfect repeat for each point...well not so in 60 as expected.

Thread amounts.
Size 20. Round 1, Sh 1.6 metres.
Round 2, Sh1 9.6 metres....Sh2, 3.8 metres

Size 60, Round 1, Sh 1.25 metres
Round 2, Sh1, 6.75metres, Sh2, 2.7 metres.

Remember you may need more!!

It would look really nice with the centre in a different colour.

OH!! did I promise you a party!!!

Thursday was the annual Christmas Tat party for me and my friends. The best group of tatting friends anyone could wish for.

QantiesqueWe tatted all morning...they all have Jon's Snowflake book and have been working hard on them so today was treat day and we tatted Jon's 'Quantiesque' Snowflake which they absolutely loved. Coral Reef 40 was a favorite and also Altin Basak in lovely varig' pale blues and we also have one in white with red beads.



My tatting Christmas tree came downstairs to be the star....photos of that to come another day. No tatting on my real tree at all this year (though a lot of the ornaments were made my me in years past and are still my favorites)and my antique feather tree (that I showed you before) that usually has my tatting now has all little wooden toy ornaments this year. It looks soooh very different. My teeny tiny tree didn't make it out of the attic!!



My table was stretched to its largest as they all bring lovely stuff to eat for our Christmas party...hubby made divine butternut squash and coconut soup for starters...we were very happy tatters and not a hint of chocolate in sight!



Oh well since you asked this is a photo of my Silver Disc Tree, it's groaning under all that tatting.

I will show some close ups and maybe some of the pieces you haven't seen before another day. I tried to count them but had to give up.

Just finished my Qantiesque's......
well you knew I would tat it in white didn't you!!



white has that special snowflake crispness that you just can't beat....and you really see what the negative spaces look like. This is in size 20.

When I saw Jon's pattern I had just unwound a skein of Coral reef in size 40 which is what she used so of course I had to tat it in that.





One for size comparison.



Only one more of Jon's Snowflakes to go.

No 13. Minaret.

Only 2 more to go after this one!

Same old formula

Minaret in white.....



...in Rainbow....



Rainbow with black background....



Rainbow with contrasting centre...orange's turn...to be fair to all the colours!



and on a black background.....you must all be getting tired of this!!



Will I finish every snowflake in Jon's book before Christmas...that is the challenge.

Thread amounts for size 20...Sh1 4.15metres, Sh2 3.40metres.

Centre section only...Sh1 90cm, Sh2 1.75metres.


Outer section only Sh1 3.15metres, Sh2 1.75metres.

Remember you may need more.

I was supervising an exam on tues and to stave off the boredom I went through all of Jon's patterns and worked out where I would put beads..often several options and how many to be on each shuttle.

Will I ever have time to try them out!!

No 12. Spring Blossom

Next to be tatted was Spring Blossom...only 3 more left after this...will I finish them this year and complete my challenge?????

Blog readers are saying that they like the way that I show the snowflake first in white and then in the Rainbow I do too. White is so pristine and classy but when I make them in rainbow they seems to come alive and look so very, very different.

In white....



then Rainbow... I made a mistake right at the beginning in this one and out 4 picots on the outer chain in stead of 3...by the time I noticed it, it was much easier to continue with 4 than to retrotat a long way. This did change the shape of the snowflake quite a lot, and made it a bit 'clunky'!



you also like them shown on a black background too.

No brilliant colour repeats showed up in this one and the pattern becomes hidden in the thread colours.



Thos snowflake is made in two rounds and the centre section was crying out to be tatted in a different colour...so it was yellow's turn.





I didn't really like this at first as the yellow looked very dominant....but it grew an my and now I like the contrast. The outer and inner colour layers have just the right balance, and show up really well. This would look nice in lots of colour combinations.

Now for the thread amounts.

Size 20, for round 1,I used 1.6 metres on Sh1 and 1.3 metres on Sh2
For Round 2 I used 3.5 metres on Sh1 and 5 metres on Sh2. A total of about 11.5 metres for the snowflake.
It measures 8.5cm/3.5in.

No 11, Carrousel

A while back I showed a scan of Carrousel tatted by Tattykat. She said that it was a lovely design so now it was next on my tat list

As usual first in white to see how much thread it took..as well as for the pleasure of a white snowflake.



Then in Rainbow Bright.....





and WOWEE!! as Tattycat showed it is another of Jon's designs that repeats exactly with my thread...just look at the outer chains...is that a perfect repeat or what!!!...I love how it does that.

Tatted in size 20 it measures 7cm, 2 3/4inches and I used...6.25metres on Sh1 and 2.25metres on Sh2.

No 10, Sweet Rose and How I Stiffen My Tatting..

Next of Jon Yusoff's Snowflakes to fall off my shuttles is Sweet Rose.
In white...



and Rainbow Bright....





Because I am tatting all of Jon's snowflakes in the same thread I can see just how different they all are. This is quite a different more rounded shape than the others.

This pattern also looks very well in HDT as once more the flow of the thread colours is not interrupted. This one worked out so well,and has to be a favourite, I love how the rings in the middle show the different colours.

Sweet Rose is quite small, 2.5 in/7cm and I used size 20, 6.5 metres on Sh1 and 3 metres on Sh2.

I normally stiffen snowflakes if I am going to hang them on my tree as they hang better...but I scan them in before I stiffen them as I love the shine on the thread.

Stiffening unfortunately takes away that natural shine but on the plus side it intensifies the colours. This is the first year that I have found that out as I have only had white snowflakes previously.

I guess we all have our own way of stiffening so I thought I would show you mine.

I lay my snowflake in a flat dish and dribble some stiffener on to it, not too much... I just want enough to fully penetrate the thread. I use my stiffener undiluted for a snowflake.



Then I press the snowflake into the liquid until all the thread has changed colour, adding more drops of stiffener if necessary.



I often blot out excess stiffener on another snowflake in the dish, then I lift it up and with both hands I squeeze the stiffener into the thread. yeah well I had to hold the camera this time!!



I block the snowflake on a couple of cork tiles pinned one on top of the other and covered with an old dish drying cotton cloth, what we call a tea towel!



Cork is not ideal as it is too resistant to the pins, styrofoam I find is not resistant enough for blocking. My favorite board is Softboard, this is a compressed fibre board that used to be used a lot as an underlay under flooring...and also sometimes with cork for notice boards. I have two large thick softboard notice boards that I made and covered with hessian years and years ago, that I find are perfect display boards.

Where I got the softboard from I have no idea, I thought it would be easy to get more, but no, when I went to look for more softboard I couldn't find it anywhere.

I finally tracked down a supplier
in the UK of large sheets of 6mm thick board and will soon be making a new blocking board from double thickness board.

I like to use a cotton cloth under the tatting as it soaks up the excess stiffener. You might imagine that the tatting would be stuck to the cloth when it is dry and you would be right..but it peels off easily. Of course I suppose if you are using PVA glue you might find that your tatting is welded permanently to the cloth!!

I have tried blocking on plastic but I find that it leaves the picots full of excess stiffener. The stiffener does stiffen the soft board but that's not a problem. Pins go easily into softboard and are held firmly. It's the best thing I know of for making display boards too.

Here is the stiffener that I use, made in UK.



One bottle will last me a lifetime!
Although I haven't tried it yet I believe that this stiffener will wash out if I change my mind. When my under cloth gets too stiff I just wash it and all the stiffness comes out.

Aren't friends wonderful!

I received a package from my very good friend Laura aka Tattycat.
Look what I got!



Laura remembered how much I loved the butterfly with the painted violets. Aren't they all beautiful, she is such a clever lass at pyrography and painting. I am sure she will be making more of these so keep an eye on her blog.

The first thing that struck me when I saw them was how much bigger they were than I had imagined. She had said how big they were but it just hadn't sunk in.
They will be such a pleasure to use. You can see the relative sizes in the photo, the smallest ones are 3 inches across.

She also sent this beautiful Denise Munoz Rose snowflake for my Rainbow Christmas tree. I just stiffened it and it looks wonderful on my tree.

No 9. Floret, a tree and a Lep update!

Floret is a seemingly simple snowflake!!! Simple if you are good at SCMR's(Self Closing Mock Rings) that is.
One I could do.... several I found needed a little knack to get them right, and after making 14 of them to put in Christmas cards...and on my tree, I have the knack..YEAH!
I will never fear SCMR's again!







When you get the knack it's a great fast little pattern to use up all the ends of your HDT's that aren't long enough for anything big bit too long just to make butterflies.
I only need to use 2.75metres on Sh1 and 30cm on Sh2 (you may need more!!) that's just over 3m total. Tey measure just an inch and a half, 4 cm.

I wanted to buy a new tree to show off my Rainbow Snowflakes, they really dont show up too well, against my small antique green tree ( see last years post to see my tree...link in the side bar) or on our big real tree.
I wanted a white one like Laura shows but couldn't get one for love nor money. I only wanted a 3ft tree but no, couldn't find one.

Finally I spotted a 5ft silver tree that I feel in love with. It's called a Silver Disc tree because of the berry like little discs at the end of the silver foliage.

It is also quite open so I thought the tatting would show up well without looking too cluttered.

Her is my naked tree!! The bear loves it!





Once I started hanging tatting on it I realised that it had not been a good choice! The tatting looks so thin that it doesn't show up at all especially against the white wall too. Maybe it will when it gets 'loaded'! It really, really needed lights but most lights have black or green wire but I did get a string of icicle lights that worked really well and its looking better by the day.

When I see how gorgeous the snowflakes look on black I wonder if a black tree would have looked better, they do actually have a black disc tree in their catalogue, but it would have needed a lot of lighting to achieve like the effect of a scan...maybe impossible. Has anybody tried a black tree??

Will show you the tree again as it gets dressed!

The little leprechaun stars all set off on their long journeys last week. They flew...no not on my broomstick but on the special Lep RECON jet which goes really fast! and I heard from one of them that he had touched down already, and was finding it hard to breathe! Oh dear! maybe I should have punched more airholes in the package...there are strict rules about this.

Well after the 5 went off and the terrible decision as to where they were going...I really, really needed another 3...... I really, really, really needed another one for a friend who needs a little bit of good luck and support at Christmas...........and so out came the lep gear and I spent all day making another one...instead of things I should have been doing...fortunately I had some bits made ready to remind me next year how I made them ( now maybe I wont remember!!)

Now all my friends who need good luck will wonder if he is going to them......so if you aren't the one, please know that I still feel for you...and if you don't get a lep and aren't in distress..then thank your lucky stars that you are fine.

Here he is ready to go off to do his job, with a lot of love going with him.

Spinning Wheels

Taking a break from Snowflakes to tat some Christmas present Spinning Wheel mats heavily influenced by Diane!

My first one I blogged about a while ago (Sept 28th) was in size 40 and used Blue for the rings and Rainbow for the chains.

Now I decided to use all Rainbow in Size 20.....



I was really wowed at the way this turned out. If you look at the colours at the edge of the mat, the orange to red to purple repeats almost exactly in every outer chain.

How cool is that!!!

This obviously relates to the circumference of my skein and to the width of the chair that I wind my skeins round!! It will be the same for any of my hand dyed threads that I use to make this mat, providing that I tat at the same tension and make my picots a similar size of course.

Naturally I had to make another one to see if the repeats happened again but expected them to be in different colours this time.....



and it did!

My third one...has red/purple/indigo on the outer chains.



In size 20 the mats measure almost 5in/just over 12cm and use....approx 14.25 metres on Sh1 and 9 metres on Sh2...thats 23.25 metres out of a 45 metre skein so you only get one out of a skein but there is lots left to make snowflakes.

Number 8, Circle Of Crowns

The next snowflake from Jon's book that I tatted was Circle of Crowns.
In traditional white.



and then Rainbow,



don't they all look stunning on a black background???



Another lovely pattern that works well with HDT as there are no sudden changes of thread colour, the colour flows well.
In size 20 thread it used approx 2.5 metres on Sh1 and approx 3.75 metres on Sh2, (you may need more!!).

It's quite small measuring 6cms.