Rainbow Snowflakes: What a Difference Colour Makes

You knew it was coming. You had to. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I purchased some of Pamela's Rainbow HDT. Of course, I had to make a Rainbow snowflake. Here it is:

This is called "Kim's Snowflake" designed by Kim Millar. It is probably my favourite snowflake pattern. I have made this pattern in a variety of threads: regular cotton, metallic, glow-in-the-dark. And have used beads in combination with the above threads. Diane probably can make MK's Spinning Wheel in her sleep; I could do Kim's Snowflake in my sleep. As mentioned I used Rainbow HDT in size 60. The snowflake is about 2 inches in diameter. This is motif # 9 in my Second 25 Motif Challenge. I forgot to mention in the last post that the Invisible Tatted Layered Snowflake (ITLS) is motif #8.

I figured I should mention my attempts at blocking the ITLS last night. I tried ironing it. My iron has a "Nylon" setting which I figured should work. It didn't. The temperature seemed too low (I think you know where I'm going with this....). Being a man I turned the temperature up. And............

It didn't help. I didn't crank the temperature too high (just to be safe). You know, I think I would rather have a wavy snowflake than a melted one. Now I just have to find it ............

Oh, before I forget, the ITLS was featured today (Nov 4) on the Needlework News blog. You'll have to scroll down to find it. Pretty cool. That's all for now.

Snowflakes, BEANILE Lace, and Invisible Tatting

I had a pretty good time at my parents last weekend, though I didn't get much tatting done. Did some crocheting though. Unfortunately, I didn't see my aunt. So more lessons will have to wait until Christmas. Now on to the tatting. The first motif is Ruth Perry's Celtic Snowflake 2008:

I love Ruth's Celtic designs. For this snowflake I used DMC Cordonnet thread in size 20. Size 20 made a large snowflake. This one is approximately 5 inches from point to point. I will have to make this snowflake again in smaller thread, probably a HDT. For those of you interested, the pattern is available from Ruth's Celtic Tatting group. The actual tatting is easy with only a couple split rings. I used approximately 5.5 yards of thread on shuttle 1 and 7-8 yards of thread on shuttle 2. This is motif #6 for my Second 25 Motif Challenge.

My next motif is a BEANILE Lace pendant designed by Nina Libin:

The pendant is called BNL-162b and is from Nina's newest Lace of Beads book called "#15 Translating Ideas Into Lace". I love Nina's BEANILE (which stands for Beadwork by Nina Libin) lace designs, but threading on all the beads can take a loooooooooooong time. However, with this pendant, and some beads I purchased at Wal*Mart, I discovered a trick to load large amounts of beads. The beads I purchased were prestrung (which is important here). Basically, to transfer the beads from the temporary strand that the beads came on to your tatting thread, you simply tie the two threads together and slide the beads from one thread to the other. Now the beads need to be large enough to pass over the knot (which the beads I tried this with were; some of them were a size 11). Once enough beads are transferred , you can untie or cut the knot and wind your shuttles. Now that I know this, I have to buy more beads that are prestrung. This pendant is motif #7. The pendant was given to my Mom as part of her birthday gift. She loved it.

Finally, I finally tried tatting with Invisible thread. It was, interesting. Here's a picture:

Like I said, the results were interesting. Kind of ethereal looking. This is the centre of Nancy Tracy's Layered Tatted Snowflake, available here. I only wound enough thread to make the centre of the snowflake. Since the invisible thread is really fine, I used four strands together. If I decide to continue, I will probably need to get several more spools of the thread for ease of winding large amounts of thread. You probably don't want to know how I managed to get four strands of thread off of one spool, without dropping them. It wasn't that bad, but I don't think I could explain it. I still need to do some experimenting with the thread. I would like to make a sample to compare the size to other threads. I also had a thought of adding a single strand of metallic filament thread to the invisible thread. And if I could match the thread to a size 20 or 30 thread, the thread might look cool as the fins on my Betta. Now look at what you started Jane! Hopefully I will get some more tatting done. I got some of Pamela's Rainbow thread, so expect to see something made out of it. That's all for now.

More Dragons! I'm Surrounded!

more animals, picture courtesy of icanhascheezburger.com

I couldn't resist this picture, being a dedicated Firefox user. Now back to my regularly scheduled blog post.

I have been working on the second dragon for my mug. Here's a picture of it. The colour is very vivid in the scan.

As I mentioned earlier, I used Omega thread, in size 30. This is the first time I have used Omega thread. I am quite pleased with the thread. Handy Hands says its a 6-cord thread, but I haven't dissected a sample yet to know for sure. I am going to have to buy more Omega thread next time I place an order from Handy Hands.

After making the Omega dragon, I began to arrange the two dragons on the canvas. Of course, after a few minutes, I realized there was too much space left on the canvas. What to do? Naturally, I HAD to make another dragon!

As you can see, this dragon isn't very happy. He seems to resent being made last. I haven't seen anyone make the fire-breathing dragon variation of Anne's dragon, so I had to. This dragon is made with Pamela's HDT called "Coral Reef". I love this colourway! Pamela is fairly new in the HDT trade, but she certainly has a way with colour. I look forward to her future colourways. Back to the dragons.... These are Motifs 3 & 4 in my 2nd 25 Motif Challenge. I hope to sew the dragons onto the canvas tonight. I'll show my progress soon. Then I'd better get back to my doily. That's all for now.

Almost:


more animals