Renulek's Spring Napkin Round 9 Done

This is a simple round. At least you think so when you start it. But you find out quickly that it will be a challenge. No, it is not difficult. It is all rings and chains, nothing fancy. But the other day I was reading Jane McLellan's blog (here) and of course, she was right when she was saying the elements are not connected.That is the problem. When you reverse work, your thread tends to wrap around the loose elements in this round. One other thing to watch. As you reverse work from the clover, be sure the chain does not get twisted. I had to backtrack a few stitches two separate times to fix that.

 

So, yes the round is simple. But it's not.

Round 8 Done and Good News

    I now have round 8 of Renulek's Spring Napkin done. Working on it has been hit and miss because we have a big push at work to get out the new version of our software. Since I am a tester and I do support, I have had to work 12 hour days again just to keep up. I worked on round 8 when I could, for instance, at lunch. Of course, I take an hour and someone else will take 1/2 hour and I have to stop.

    I did cut and tie this round. The next couple rounds really do not lend themselves to continuous tatting. It is not that I could not find a path, though round 10 would really be a challenge. Mostly it  was time cut and tie vs. continuous tatting time. It just made more sense to do it the easier way this time. Now to start round 9.

In other news, the good news in the title is that, if you remember late fall of 2016 we had a hurricane and it left a large tree in my back yard with a really massive stump and trunk. I was finally able to hire a service to get it out of the yard and grind the stump down. Now all that is left is moving the rest of the stuff in the old shed to the new one and dismantling the old shed down to the floor. I think the floor is ok. If it is, I am just going to rebuild it. Then I will have 2 sheds. One will become my radio shack for my ham radio stuff. I can't wait!

On To Round 8

    I am still working on Renulek's Spring Napkin. I have finished round 7 and segued to round 8.

To do this, I used a split chain on the last ring, then a split ring. This took me to the other two leaves of a clover. One is right and one is left. In her pattern, she does tie and cut, then starts with one of the "outer" leaves, makes the big ring attached to round 7, then the other "outer" leaf. From there it is a chain.
    Looking at where I was, I already have the Ring attached to round 7, so how do I make the two "outer" leaves without it looking lopsided? Then it hit me. I have two shuttles. I made one of them with each shuttle. This came together at the center and I continued on with the chain.

    I think I made the balance just right. It looks even and the chain comes out of it nicely. Now I continue with the pattern as written.

Working With Split Rings

    A friend said they are having a little trouble with split rings, so I made a couple of short videos to show them how to get around the problem. First up is just how I make a picot on the "split" part of the ring. I call the part of the split ring that is closest to me the split part. You make the stitches as RODS, of course. 

 The other problem they were having was how to attach the split ring to a picot on another element. It is a little tricky until you understand that the core thread has to remain the core thread. This video shows how it works.

    I hope these help explain this to those who have not yet "gotten it".

Return of the Duchess

She is back! For a limited engagement, she has returned. This is, for some reason, one of my favorite little tats. I like making it. It is Jane Eborall's 2017 TIAS pattern. It does not take long and it has a variety of stitches. I have done her in a variety of threads, too. I have used not only several colors, but also several sizes. This one is the latest. The colors are 997 Alabaster and 991 Sahara Shadows. This is in King Tut quilting thread. The Duchess, as I call her, is not as big as the shuttle I used!

As I said a couple of posts earlier, I kept hearing about this thread. Now I find I do like to tat with it. It pulls through a ring very easily. It has little twist coming off the spool. I will probably be doing quite a bit with it in the future.

Delivered! Finally.

    If you have looked at this blog for a year or so you may remember I made a top hat in May of 2017. I did it because there is a tea house here called Top Hat. I was there and the owner had crochet hangings but no tatting, so I decided to make some tatting for her. That is why I made the hat. One of the ladies at work is good with ribbon so she made the hat band for it.

    Today, the hat was delivered. Four of us, Lois, Brandi, Ava and I went to lunch. When we had finished we called the owner over and gave her the hat. She loved it! Now she wants to buy my lunch. I did not do it for that. I just wanted to get some tatting out in the public eye. I was pleased that she did like it, though.

Thread For A Tryout

    I keep seeing and hearing about this one brand of thread, King Tut, by Superior Threads. Since it seems several people are enamored of it, I decided to order some and test it myself. I have not quite decided what to do with it, but I do have an idea. I ordered 5 spools of 500 yards. I figured that a few colors would not be a bad thing and would let me see how it runs in the color variants.
    When I went to the Superior Threads website, I chose King Tut and was amazed at the colors. There are 135 colors. The first 100 make up the "Egyptian" theme colors. That is inventive, to say the least. One color I have little of is browns. I got Alabaster, Cedars, Sahara Shadows, Sahara Desert, and Sphinx. From creams to browns. This should be a good mix.

What am I going to do with it? I am not sure, but I did just sign on for a round robin on Craftree, so I may just use it for that. I have tried a few rings and chains already. It seems to tat well, pull smoothly and it is strong. I will tell more after I give it a proper workout. Oh, by the way, you can also get the first 100 colors as a set for about $800. Order one for me too. Thanks.