Anne Bruvold's SSSR Angel

I've been thinking about angels recently in a break from snowflakes, and really enjoyed this adorable angel pattern by Anne Bruvold, a clever use of both single shuttle split rings (SSSR) and self closing mock rings (SCMR) which tats up quickly.

I added a few stitches to the body and removed a few picots from the head, but the major change was that because I find it awkward to hide the ends when finishing with a SCMR, I made these backwards using a single shuttle - unwinding a short length of thread let me work the body first using the short tail as the "shuttle" for the SCMR, then I worked the skirt in split rings until I'd used up the short tail and switched to SSSRs to finish, leaving only one end to hide in the last true ring.  This also avoided having to work in a second thread and make this an excellent pattern to empty some shuttles.

Anne has generously shared the pattern (as well as many others) on her English pattern page here.  I recommend bookmarking the page as her pattern PDFs do not link back to it, which is unfortunate.

Samantha Melnychuk's Kaleidoscope Snowflake

From A Veritable Tatted Blizzard by Samantha Melnychuk, the inward facing chains of this snowflake make an unusual straight-sided hexagon. I love the shape and the unusual structure, but with my tension (or possibly my blocking - her chains curve more) the double rings and the straight sides are a little crowded - I could modify it by increasing the number of stitches so the rings sit higher, or I could reduce to a single ring... 


But a third option is to change the tip entirely to get it up out of the way.  I tried to mimic the style and reflect the shapes already in the snowflake; I am pleased with how it came out.


While Samantha is no longer tatting and her books are out of print, I learned that she found a box with a few unsold copies of her books, which are available on a first-come, first-served basis.  If you are interested, please contact her directly at smelnychuk at gmail dot com.  Her three books are:

• A Veritable Tatted Blizzard
• The Psychedelic Shuttle
• Teeny Tatted Snowflakes

(If you contact her and learn any of these books are sold out, please comment below so I can update the post!)

Teiko Fujito's motif 105 (star-tipped snowflake)

This snowflake is motif #105 from Tatted Fashion by Teiko Fujito.  I love the graceful lines and echoed shapes, with a small snowflake at the tip of each arm of the full snowflake (technically the original pattern had a star of five rings at each tip - I added a sixth one to change the star to a snowflake).  The pattern was illustrated as a handkerchief corner embellishment, proving that beautiful snowflakes hide in the most unusual places.  I can pin it a little tighter when starching, which straightens out the long connecting picots.

Book cover shown below using an amazon affiliate link. Teiko's work is meticulously executed and gloriously colorful, and I find myself flipping through the pages just to look at the lovely pictures.