A rose and a question

[betsybookwyrm.livejournal.com]

I don't think I've posted here before, so I'll start out by saying hello. Hello!

I've been learning some new techniques lately. Mostly because I wanted to make this:



It's a combination of the roses in Judith Connors' Contemporary Tatting and in To de Haan-van Beek's New Dimensions in Tatting, though I didn't follow either one exactly.

This project is the first time I've done needle tatting, inverted tatting and pearl tatting. I love it, even though I can see some places I'd improve it the next time I make one.



After that, I wanted to play with pearl tatting a little, so I made a couple of bracelets:



Now I feel like trying something new again, and the last post here has reminded me that I've always wanted to try Celtic tatting. Does anyone have any recommendations for instructions and/or a good (and fairly simple) pattern or two to try it with?

Comments

[1grl-revolution.livejournal.com]

Wow beautiful! I just love that rose!

[betsybookwyrm.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I've wanted to make one of those for ages, ever since I first saw it in one of the books. It just took a while for me to get up the courage to try inverted tatting...

[aspiemama.livejournal.com]

This is where I got my book. The name of it is simply "celtic tatting". I would just give you the exact link but the page uses frames, so that won't work.
http://lacis.com/catalog/catalog.html

Edit: I would advise buying a celtic shuttle or two from the same site if you are serious about celtic tatting. Some patterns are almost impossible with a standard shuttle. Celtic shuttles tend to be a lot thinner and narrower than standard shuttles.

Think you could post your adapted pattern for this? I would be interested in trying it.

[betsybookwyrm.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I'll have a look for that book elsewhere (due to the current exchange rate flop, I like to get things from Australian-based shops where possible).

Is the only difference between celtic shuttles and normal shuttles that they're narrower? I hadn't even known that they existed!

As for my rose adaptations... I didn't really keep track of what I did, and I've already given away the rose. I can put together a rough petal diagram, but it won't be exact.

The petals are the only part that's significantly different from the Contemporary Tatting pattern. Basically, I just looked at what the the two books had for the petals, and made up each petal as I went based on how big I wanted it to be. Because I used significantly thicker thread than the patterns (I used plain old stranded embroidery cotton, all six strands together), my petals only had two or three layers/rounds/whatever you want to call them, rather than the 4+ that the original pattern had. I will put that diagram together so you can see (can't right now - the only computer with decent drawing software is unavailable).

[betsybookwyrm.livejournal.com]

Okay, my petals were more or less like this:



Not to scale, and not in proportion.

That's an inner ring, and two rounds of inward-facing chain. The inner round of chain is attached by picots to the picots of the ring. The outer round of chain (best done with a needle not a shuttle) is attached by picots to the inner round of chain.

Not all the petals looked like this - the number of stitches and placement of picots and joins varies from petal to petal. The three smallest petals don't have the outer round of chain.

[gretaorgayle.livejournal.com]

I love the rose! Where did you find the pattern for it? I've got other flower patterns, but none as nice as that. Could you please post a link to the pattern or the title to the book in which you found it? Thanks.

[betsybookwyrm.livejournal.com]

Thanks :)

It's mostly the rose pattern from Contemporary Tatting by Judith Connors. I simplified the stem a little so the leaves come directly off the main stem, and I adapted the petals as described in the comments above (I did so mostly because I was using thicker thread than the pattern and didn't wwant a huge rose).