Ribbonwinners Tatting Patterns & Shuttles by
Georgia Seitz
11460 Via Appia
Anchorage Alaska 99515-2905 USA
AKTATTER@aol.com
www.georgiaseitz.com




May Snowflake of the Month


Earlier we all enjoyed studying the antique booklet "Silk Tatting Lesson Book." The final pages concerned the making of a collar with the circular motif below.





Using two shuttles, this motif began with a ring of 11 long picots separated by 2 DS climbing out through a mock picot (12th picot). The Chain repeat = 2 DS long picot 1 DS picot 1 DS long picot 2 DS.



Shuttle join to the next picot on the initial ring and continue around until you reach the last picot of the last chain. Using shuttleonw do a split chain for 2 ds and climb out through another mock picot. Join to the first picot of the next chain (this forms a v-shaped element) and continue to chain. When you reach the ring, DO NOT REVERSE work but use the second shuttle too throw off a ring with 7 picots graduated in size; continue to chain joining to the last and first picots of the previous round.



Now after this lesson I asked for snowflake patterns for May and during the summer. Katie Verna was inspired by the above motif to convert it to a 6-pt snowflake.



Alpine Snowflake




Prepared by Katie Verna in SW Florida, from the "wheel" motif in Belding Bros. and Company Tatting book, the subject of Georgia's online tatting class on 15 May.



Katie writes: "The sample shown used thread size 30 Cebelia and two shuttles wound continuously, with about 2 yds on one and 3 on the other. I had to use the shoe lace trick in the last round--of course, I didn't keep track of which. For the long picots, I used a 3/8" vertical picot gauge, and for the smaller long picot on Round 2, a 1/4" vertical picot gauge.



Round 1. R1---,(2---)5 times,1. Make mock picot to take you to next round. [ the --- = a long picot]


Round 2. CH 6--3-3--6, join to long picot of round 1. Repeat around until the long picot before last chain 6, which you will "bridge" in order to make mock picot to take you to last round.


Round 3. Join to next long picot (if there's a small picot between the join of the long picot to the mock picot, you're going backwards!). CH 10-3, R (1-)8 times, with picots graduating in size from small to biggish to small. (Note: This ring has a small "stem" or mock picot where it joins the chain. Here's one time that you don't "snug up" the ring to the last chain. This time you want a gap!),3 -10, join to 2 long picots, and repeat the chain, ring, chain around.


To me this snowflake reminds me of early spring flowers, maybe edelweiss, hence the name,"Alpine Snowflake."



I then challenged Katie to do a second version using bugle beads on all those long picots! The picots must accomodate both the bead and have space for the join. Here's how it looks!





Notes on beaded version: Materials: YLI rayon thread (size 20?), long and medium bugle beads, seed beads. Picots were increased to 5/8” for the long ones in Round 1 and a scant ˝” for picots in Round 2. Chains in Round 2: Ch8—4-4—8. Chains in Round 3 need to be Ch 12-5, flower ring, 12-5. Happy tatting—bet you can make it even better!!"

Katie Verna



Great work, Katie, thanks for sharing with us.


AKTATTER@aol.com