Jon Yusoff's Pirouette snowflake

For Easter, a colored snowflake from Jon Yusoff's lovely book "Tatted Snowflakes Collection."  This snowflake is named Pirouette - I removed some picots from the large open spaces in each tip to help emphasize the shape of the white chain, which is a little more striking in person.  The colored thread is a vintage Coats&Clark variegated; I'm pleased that the blue showed up in about the same spot in the center each time.

This is another of my favorite snowflake books; I bought it directly from Jon via her blog (http://tatsaway.blogspot.com), but she no longer seems to have a sales link to her books, so I'm not sure if she's still selling them or not.

Nancy Tracy's Hippie Flower

The original pattern was designed by Nancy Tracy of Be-Stitched, but I have modified it a bit - added a repeat to make a 6-pointed snowflake instead of a 5-pointed flower, added a picot at the tip of the "petal", and omitted a picot or two from the "fluffy" part of the pattern.



I really like the central star, but it's obscured by some picots, and some of the picots in the "fluffy" part overlap each other which always annoys me, so I tried it again with my original variations but removing more picots.



I'm not sure which one I like more.  Either way, this is a fun little motif and was quick to tat, and would make lovely 5-pointed flowers in colored thread as well as a snowflake in white.  I found it helpful to use a gauge to ensure the long chains were all the same length (I tat on the bus while commuting and it sometimes has negative effects on chain tension consistency).

I got the pattern for free by being subscribed to her newsletter, but it appears that instead of putting this pattern on her extensive pages of free patterns (here) she has listed it for sale in her store (here).  If you wish to subscribe to her shop newsletter to get other free patterns in the future, follow the instructions on her website.

Workbasket Magazine's Two Tone Coaster

This is the "Two Tone Coaster" from Workbasket Magazine's book "Tatting Patterns: The Classic Collection" (part of their Aunt Ellen's Treasury series).  I used a smaller thread and did it in all white, and I think it makes a lovely snowflake.  I suspect that with some careful pinning, I can coax the large loops into diamonds when starching.  I love the nested shapes (flower-hexagon-flower-honeycomb) and contrast between the dense and open areas.


Sadly, this is yet another out-of-print book and the Amazon used price has gotten crazy.

Jennifer Williams' snowflake Karen

I'm still working through Jennifer Williams' new book "Tatted Snowflakes", modifying the patterns which use beads and sequins and similar additions to be straight tatting.  This is a modified version of "Karen" in which I replaced the sequins with Josephine knots and flattened two layers into one.  (If you recall me expressing some frustration about Josephine knots two posts ago, this is the other snowflake I was working on at the time - it has 48 of them!  Making the knots larger helps them close with fewer problems.)

I think it came out quite nicely, though my blocking could be improved.


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