Alternate Threads

    As I said last time, now I have time to try new things. Here are more samples from the Alternate Threads book. I am working straight through the book from front to back and I want to do each sample as presented. I think Randy and Gary have it in a pretty progressive order.

     I am starting to get the hang of doing this. I still have not figured out how to get the picot gauges in there yet, but one thing at a time. I did, though, decide to make it a bit more difficult. At Tat Days last year I purchased 4 of their shuttles. I am learning how to use them as I work through the book.

    They are fiddly at first, to say the least. I keep having to work that screw to get thread. Like Randy said, though, it's practice. It is getting to be a bit easier each time and I am developing my own technique. Later in the book he talks about the double bobbin shuttles. That should really get interesting!

Learning a New Technique

    Ah, retirement has it's perks. One of them, and probably the one I like most, is more time to do what I want instead of what the company wants. Freedom to choose. Time at home with family.
    One of the things I am doing with the time is trying to learn new methods and techniques in my tatting. I have time to practice now. At Tat Days last year I took Randy Houtz's class on Alternate Threads. I am using size 20 for this, not King Tut!
    The first thing I see I have to come to grips with is not the concept, it is the hand position. I have now done the first 2 pages of examples he gives. I just separated most of them by chains of some sort to see them easier. I think I am starting to get used to the hand position pretty well, though occasionally I do drop one of the threads.

    Here are a couple of scans of the samples I have done. I see that I need to work on tension, but that will be later, when I am more comfortable with process. I think the front/back difference is interesting too.  These two pictures are the same thing, just flipped over. I really want to get the hang of this. It has a lot of possibilities. For some reason, this is reminding me a bit of pearl tatting. It is probably in how the thread is carried around each set of stitches.
    In other news, no, I have not finished blocking out the crown. Judith Connors suggested that I put a ring in base to help hold the circle. I looked in my drawer of "tatting supplies" and found a 4" ring that will fit. I just have to decide how I want to attach it. I could wrap with ribbon, wrap with thread, not use it at all, or re-tat the crown and use it like a cabone ring project. At least I have time to decide.

Finished Tatting the Crown

    I have finished with tatting the crown. It took a while. There have been some changes here so I had to deal with that. I retired. I have been repairing things at home. I am taking more care of the wife. I installed Windows 11. OK, there is no Windows 11. Anyway, I am just busy, busy, so it took a while.

    You can see the tatting is done, but I still have to block it out. I have given it a light pressing with a craft iron so it will start to have shape. Next I will find a pot and probably some clear glue mixed with water. Probably not today.

    About the Windows 11, I have been threatening to do this. There is no Windows 11 yet, but I am sick of Windows 10. It downloads updates behind your back, won't let you refuse them, reboots the computer when IT wants, even if you are in the middle of something. On top of that it sends loads of information back to Microsoft. So, I did something about it. I am posting this on my Linux computer. I installed Linux and removed Windows. It is faster, only updates if I want it to, and there is no "company" to report my information to. It is different, but not that hard to learn. I have it working pretty well now. If you are interested then Google Linux Mint.

Coming Along With the Crown

    My crown is coming along. After restarting a few times and especially restarting this round 4 times, I am finally getting it. I kept doing stupid stuff like leaving out stitches in the chain that have to be there or it looks lopsided and cannot join. Instead of untatting it, it was simpler to start over. This is the furthest I have gotten and now I am in the swing of it, getting it right.
     The hardest part lately is getting time to work on it. I try to do it in the mornings, before work, but often I have other things that need doing. Life definitely happens!
    Thanks to Jane Eborall for teaching the vsp in her TIASes (Is that correct?). My vsp's are just barely big enough to get my #12 crochet hook through. It looks better though.

    I have three repeats done. There are 11 total. then there will be the nightmare of blocking it and stiffening it to stand upright. I think I will put this one on display at Tat Days this September. Other than that, I have no plans for it. I just always wanted to make it.

Starting the Crown Again

    It has been a really lousy six weeks. I got some kind of crud that settled in my chest and would not let go. I was wheezing and what I would call chain coughing, where it just goes on for 15 minutes. The really bad part was it was not productive at all, so the gunk just stayed there. Now I am finally getting over it, after the third round of antibiotics. That is why I have not been tatting a lot, especially on the Faith Crown project.
    I kept looking at that crown. The rings are not even, there is a place where I joined and got in a hurry that looks terrible. I was just not happy with it, even though I wanted to use it to find errors and difficulties. Ok. I think I did that. I now have restarted it. I used bigger shuttles to do the first round so there would be no joins needed that would look unsightly. I think this is much better.

 

    For some reason, the white thread looks pink in this light. I did not bother to correct the image. Please bear with me.

    The second round has something that I find interesting. It is not in the pattern. I have been playing with a technique, but I am not sure what it is. In the closeup photo, you see I am putting a chain across the rings. 

    When I join, I make the standard down join to make a lock stitch. I then put the shuttle hook up through the picot and pull the shuttle thread back down through and pass the shuttle through the loop like an up join. This effectively makes a larks head knot. The reason I wanted to do this was to make the join balanced and even.What I see is a bar going across the join, the ball thread still on the left and the shuttle thread exiting a larks head knot. Now I need a picot here so that makes it all the easier to do. The question I have is, is this a standard stitch, like maybe a Catherine Wheel? Or something like that? I just don't really know. It does balance out my joins, though.

Faith Crown

    Just a quick update. I got the first round done, but  I am not really happy with it. I know I can do better. I am going to go with it as is at the moment and finish this crown. I will probably do it over later, but for now I am looking for the "glitches". I have found a couple.
    The first was running out of thread on the first round. I hate to tie in tails any more than needed, so I will have to use a larger shuttle next time.
    Second, I can tie in tails a lot better than I did, but I was in a hurry, so it does not look very good to me. No, you probably cannot see it in this photo. I am so ashamed of it I don't want to show it.
    Third, I also got a couple of  "loose" spots, where the chain or ring should be pulled together better.

    This photo is the first and second round. R2 is just the chain from ring-top to ring-top. On to the final round and see what errors await.

A New Strip

    I am now almost over the cold I have had for 3 weeks. This has been miserable. The doctor gave me a course of antibiotic, but had to give me another, stronger one when the first did not work. Feeling better now, but still a little congested.
   I am working on something I have promised myself for 40 years or more. Look at the row of rings in the picture. Recognize it? In the back of the book "Tatting Patterns and Designs" are 3 crowns. I always wanted to do one. I have started it several times and lost interest or got diverted to something else and forgot about it. Now I am going to do it and finish it. This will be Faith, the first one.

    When I started this row, I made a ring, then a chain. I wondered about the next ring. Do a shoelace? Then it hit me. So obvious. These are all thrown (floating) rings. That also means that the chain is continuous, so it will want to curl, distort, pull. I find the easy way to force it straight is just hold the first ring and rub my finger along it, a little at a time, until it is straight. It seems to work pretty well.