Sumie Fujishige's Motif #30 (scalloped ring of hearts)

This is Motif #30 from a lovely book entirely in Japanese (see cover below), which Amazon claims is titled 'Japanese craft book "Tatting Lace Nice Items"#3440' by Sumi Fujishige.  But I think her name is Sumie, which is on the cover.  And it's possible the motif has a name in addition to the number - I can't read Japanese to tell.  (As someone who is fully literate in their own language, and can puzzle out bits of a number of others, it's an interesting experience to be so illiterate that you can't even recognize letters or other basic script units.  Three cheers for diagrammed patterns and Arabic numerals!)

I love the elegance of the ring of hearts and the scalloped edge.


I did change the order of construction slightly - her pattern worked the hearts from the side in the same round as the first chain, giving them rounded tips instead of pointy ones.  Because I have opinions about the proper shape of hearts, I made the center rosette as SCMRs and threw off the hearts instead.

Sharon Briggs' Darling Josephine

It is surprisingly difficult to find snowflakes with hearts in them.  This lovely snowflake is Darling Josephine from the book "Tatted Flurries" by Sharon Briggs.  My tension wasn't quite right for the pattern as written, so I lengthened the horizontal bar between the hearts with an extra Josephine knot and set of stitches.  I have mixed feelings about Josephine knots (the little disks/bobs) - they are cute, but every so often I have one which refuses to close neatly and it's very aggravating!  Next time I might use picots instead. ;)


I received this book for Christmas (yay!) and haven't made very many things from it yet, but the snowflakes look very interesting.  Patterns are diagrammed, and all the snowflakes in the book are pictured on the front and back covers so you have a good idea what you're getting.  It can be purchased directly from Sharon on her website (which also has some free patterns).

A heart for Valentine's Day

Since it is Valentine's Day, I thought I would post a heart instead of a snowflake. :)  Some of these I'd made previously, and some I was inspired to make recently as I rummaged around in my patterns looking for the sources for existing hearts...and got distracted by how fun a particular pattern looked.


(Click on picture for larger version.)

Pattern sources (starting with the six large hearts in the center, then going around the outside clockwise from the top right) - note that hearts are not to scale with each other, as they are done in a variety of different thread sizes, and I omitted any beads called for.

• Large pink variegated heart in the upper left: Valentine's Heart by Etha Schuette (pattern) - I omitted the interior picots and added picots where round two joins round 1, so that all the arches in round 3 had picots inside them.
• Red heart middle left: Heart by Edda Gustalla (pattern) - I had some trouble with the rings at the top; they were very tight.  Larger joining picots next time, I think.
• Red heart with internal squares, upper center: Rosemarie's Heart Pattern by Rosemarie Peel (pattern)
• Blue heart:  Butterfly Heart by Irene Woo.  Published in Georgia Seitz's book: "Tatting Online, The Official 1999 Tat_Chat Pattern Book", but there is also a (text-only pattern) via the wayback machine.
• Dark red heart upper right:  Heart's Desire from "A Potpourri of Tatting Patterns" by Susan K Fuller, which is out of print, but she has given permission for an (online pattern) and (diagram pattern) to be posted.
• Lighter red heart, middle right:  another Heart's Desire, but I took out some inner rings and picots.
• Top of the curve on the right side:  4 similar hearts, variations on Kelly Dunn's Flower Heart (pattern) - I experimented with different tips and joins for different effects; I like the sharp tip from using Joelle Paulson's idea of a 1 stitch SCMR (click here for her video about this technique).
• Little Josephine Heart by Nancy Tracy (pattern - PDF; her pattern page is here) - I made the Josephine knots larger and added a few stitches to the chain at the tip to better space the ring and the Josephine knots on either side
• Small Tatted Heart by Betsy Evans (pattern)
• Enchanter by Jon Yusoff (pattern) - I worked the heart in the center separately so it would be a contrasting color.  If I did it again, I think I would make it continuously by encapsulating the red in a pink SSSR to climb out, then have the outer chains red and the inner rings pink.
• Motif #69 from "MiniTats" by Patti Duff
• Peacock Heart by Birgit Phelps (pattern)
• Dark red heart with open center at the bottom tip of the image: Valentina from "Tatting Adventures with beads, shuttle & needle" by Judith Connors
• Christmas Hearts by Anne Bruvold (pattern - PDF; her pattern page is here)
• Joy's Heart by Wanda Salmans (pattern - PDF; her pattern page is here) - the outer round would normally be much more "frilly" - I misread the stitch counts but didn't realize until I was halfway around, then chose to carry on as I'd started rather than cut and restart.
• Two variations on Immortal Heart by Rebecca Diamond aka Tatmom  (pattern Update!  Her site is back up - pattern here and check out her other free patterns.)
• Pink spiral of SSSR heart strings by Gina Butler (pattern - PDF, her pattern page is here) - these are normally very petite hearts; I made them using an unlabeled pearl cotton which was clearly larger than size 10.
• Variation on Frivolite Herz by Christel Weidmann (English pattern - translation of the German page) - I put only a single ring in the center, not the clover. 
• Valentine Earrings by Sharon Briggs (pattern)
• Two variations of  Hasty Heart by Barbara Hevener from "Tats to Share with Others" handout from the August 20, 2011 Palmetto Tatters Guild Meeting (but there is an online bookmark version here).  I changed the order of work to basically match the bookmark version since I didn't want to have hanging threads.  Also, for one of them I misjudged where the variegation would come out and the arches were going to be white - I didn't think that would look good with the pink center, so I made a lock chain instead to have pink/white/pink/white.
• And lastly, the tiny single-ring hearts scattered around are mostly made using a Victorian set for the cleft, an idea I first saw from Nicole Landau on the now defunct etatters mailing list. Make a single ring with something like 6ds, 6d, 6s, 6ds (where d and s are the 1st and 2nd half of the doubleknot).  Close & tie; use the tip of your fingernail to push the cleft into shape.  Vary the counts to preference.  I use them a lot for cards.

Looking up some of those links required some extensive sleuthing and I was reminded that if you see a pattern you are interested in, you should print or save it then - don't save a link thinking you'll go back "later", because it might not exist.  Several links above are only available via the wayback machine (http://web.archive.org), but it doesn't cover everything and doesn't always have images.

Jennifer Williams' snowflake "Anne"

This snowflake is a modified version of "Anne" from Jennifer Williams' new book "Tatted Snowflakes".


A lovely birthday present (yay!), I've been having fun with some of the techniques she uses (arrangement of elements, lock chains, Victorian sets) while blithely ignoring the bits I don't like (beads, sequins, multi-layer patterns).  As such, this snowflake was made without the beads, and I combined two layers of tatting into one.  It's very cute, but I was surprised how small it was using size 20 thread.  I might try making it again and altering the stitch counts to get something larger. 


So far I'm quite pleased with the book; my one gripe is that a couple patterns don't have a face-on photo of the worked piece - only "arty" angled photos of the piece on a table.  Cover below via Amazon affiliate link - click through to see several patterns in the "see inside" option.  Her website, which has tutorials and other patterns, is www.curiad-tatting.co.uk.