Miranda Rensberger's Starflower

Shared by Miranda Rensberger (aka tatting fool) on her blog, I find the center of this snowflake quite captivating, with a graceful symmetry that really does resemble a flower.  It's worked in three rounds, the center round being the six split rings in the center.  I tried working it in two rounds (combining the first and second rounds by converting the first round into regular rings) and it does make a difference - working it as written using split rings results in more even joins between the inner chains and center rings.

The pattern PDF shows one which was blocked firmly using pins, and the graceful curves become striking angles; both variations look lovely.

Find this and other patterns (some free, some for sale) on her pattern page.

Emma Crew's Flutterflake (sans flutters)

This lovely flake was originally shared by Emma Crew back in 2001 on the now-defunct geocities, but is fortuitously still available via the wayback machine.  (If anyone knows of a current website for Emma, please let me know!)

In the original pattern, each petal contains a butterfly (the "flutters") tatted separately in size 80 thread.  I skipped the flutters partly because I really like the way it looks without them; the petals have an unusual onion-dome look to them. The other reason is that it's almost impossible to match whites across dye lots, much less two different sizes and two different brands, and I wanted an all-white snowflake.

I didn't do a great job blocking this one, but also I found it a little tricky to get the junction where the chains reverse direction to lie neatly - I tend to pull too tightly on the first stitch and pull them out of alignment, as you'll notice if you look closely.  People with gentler tension will find it goes more smoothly; if you include the flutters the join happens at the transition so it is less obvious even if your tension is too tight.  It's possible to skip the transition and have a simple curve for the chains, but I think it's not quite as attractive.

Pattern available here thanks to the internet archive/wayback machine.

Shuttle Brothers tatting class & summer break from tatting

I have been reminded that I really don't tat during the summer, thus the unplanned hiatus.  Partly I'm less inclined to tat with white thread when it's hot and my hands are sticky (air conditioning is not common here) but I've also been doing other things (more below).  The weather is turning, so I'll hopefully be back to snowflakes soon.

There was one bit of tatting in June:  I had the opportunity to take a three-day tatting class on rings with The Shuttle Brothers, Gary and Randy Houtz (http://www.gr-8shuttles.com/).  Just rings - but rings using TWO threads, and techniques other than the self-closing mock ring.  It was a ton of fun and involved a great deal of thinking, so I don't have a lot of tatting to show for it, just a handful of rings:





Yes, each of those is technically a single ring, usually with a very short chain going in and out (on a few I skipped the chain so you can see four tails).  Some rings include stacked or nested rings using different techniques.  A lot of the ideas are most useful when tatting with two colors, which I don't typically use, but some result in interesting textures or options which can be incorporated in one color work.  If you have a chance to take a class from them, I highly recommend it.

Other things? 

I took a week long trip to visit my new baby niece.  She's adorable.  I am, of course, completely unbiased on this topic.

I also coordinated a freezer jam making activity for my church group.  49 people signed up to participate and make their jam - I get the supplies in bulk and keep everything running.  After several weeks of preparation on my part, we converted 21.5 gallons of strawberries (they come from the processing plant washed, capped, sliced, and in buckets, but no preservatives or sugar added) into 430 cups of jam during six fast-paced hours.

Here's a shot of most of the supplies as I was setting up:


During the summer I help to coordinate a local produce bulk-buy group, and as a result I can get my hands on some really nice ripe fruit.  I eat a lot of it, but also made some cooked jam: 

• apricot (I love it in yogurt)
• peach
• peach-apricot (experimental, not sure how much I like it)
• peach-raspberry (experimenting with different ratios before I added the vanilla in the next recipe)
• peach melba (peach-raspberry+vanilla bean; about 4 cups peaches, 1 cup raspberries, and a vanilla bean cut in half with the little black seeds scraped out and mixed in.  Toss the vanilla bean pod in while it's cooking, but fish it out before you can the jam.  So good.)
• dark chocolate raspberry truffle (yes, it's chocolate jam - amazing on croissants.  Recipe here.)
• plum (from the oval purple Italian plums - from a neighbor's tree)
• plum star anise (due to time constraints I left the star anise and plums melding for two days in the fridge instead of a couple hours, and it was a little too much licorice flavor for me.  Taste testers who like licorice raved about it though.  Recipe from Preserving by the Pint.)
• pear vanilla bean (recipe from the Food In Jars blog, but I peel the pears and modify to use dry pectin, which is cheaper.  My local natural foods coop store has vanilla beans for about $2 each in the bulk section.)
• pear cranberry cinnamon (it tastes like autumn - from Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving, again I modify to use dry pectin instead.)

Did a jam tasting for some friends and discovered they look very nice on a plate together. In person the translucence is quite striking.


Once they come into season I'll also make some Meyer lemon marmalade, but otherwise I think I'm done with jam for the year.  I use it for gifts and sell some - I'd never be able to eat all that myself!

Tina Frauberger's motif #52

Another motif from Tina Frauberger's book "Schiffenspitze" published in Dusseldorf in 1921.  This is a sibling to motif 53 which I posted in April; they have the same center but a different round two.  I find the shape surprisingly compelling, even with slightly askew blocking.

 Now that it is in the public domain, Georgia Seitz has posted a PDF of Tina's book at http://www.georgiaseitz.com/public/tinafrauberger/fraubergerschiffchenspitze1921.pdf.  This is motif #52 on book page 54, and there is a lovely doily showing the same motifs combined on page 55.

Birgit Phelps' Small Star

Small Star by Birgit Phelps as a very belated Sunday snowflake.  I somehow tweaked my back and there has not been a lot of tatting over the last week or two.  Feeling better now, and fortunately this cute little snowflake tats up quickly.


Birgit has kindly shared the pattern here - for other patterns, see her pattern index is here, and/or her blog here.

Burda’s motif #66 (altered into a snowflake)

The original 8-pointed pattern is from the special tatting edition (#E969) of Burda magazine, where the motif is labeled “969/66”; I believe the 969 is from the edition number, making this motif #66.  It might have a name as well but I cannot read German.  When packing I took a photo of the cover and pattern, so my phone is serving as a small pattern library while I move.  ;)  I made some serious alterations from the original pattern - the original had eight points and the center was a 4-ring rosette; I changed to six points with a single center ring (stitches in counts of 3), increased the horizontal bar on the outside round by 1 stitch so that it would fit with the reduced number of points, and did the outer rings as Josephines instead of regular rings.  For someone who complains so much about Josephine knots, I certainly seem to add them to patterns a lot.

Then I made another one, with normal rings instead of Josephines.  I also added picots - apparently those picots I am constantly removing have to come out somewhere.  Central picots were a little too long, so the central star is not as nice.

Both of these really will need to be pinned out to block perfectly symmetrically; the chain lock joins on long picots tend to curve a little.

No link; can't find it online to show a picture of the cover.

Robin Perfetti's Late Winter Snowflake

Late Winter Snowflake, one of Robin Perfetti (tattingbythebay)'s many beautiful designs.  I love how the small interior rings nestle into the chains, like eggs held in a nest. 

Robin has generously shared this pattern on her free patterns page here (she also sells patterns, so check out the etsy link from her page for other designs).  I greatly admire the clarity of her diagrammed patterns and am reading her tutorial on using Inkscape to create diagrams, so with luck I might eventually be able to share some.