There is no such thing as a failed experiment, only experiments with unexpected outcomes

 No, I did not think that headline out myself, it's a quote from some engineer called something as wonderful as Buckminster Fuller. For this experiment I wanted to do a red flower, I wanted it to be 3D and I wanted it to have voluminous petals. I thought of different ways to achieve this, and came up with several rings, squeezed as thin as possible and then a chain around them. I actually like the design, though I need to do one with 2 rings less, because it almost became too voluminous. It still has to appear dainty, delicate and...well..tatty.

The thread is DMC Cebelia, and it's a much darker red than what it seems to be on the picture (I really need to improve those photo skills). Each petal has 5 rings inside, and the outer chain is pulled just enough to shape the it. I tried fixing each petal to the previous, like the average tatted flower (3 ds, join to previous etc.), but then there wasn't enough room for the petals to fold out (hence the 'I need to do one with 2 rings less'). Then I tried only to have them meet in the bottom of the petal, which kinda works as long as you don't touch it. :P Well...I think it does look pretty but it has to be sewn into place, not to fall apart.

Oh, I also finished my New and Improved Easter Egg. Unfortunately it almost drowned in sugar syrup and it has yet to recover. :(

How impatient can you be?

The syrup is hardly dry, but I never were a patient person. :P Here is the Easter Egg. As you can see, the leaves badly needs to be reworked. I'm not quite sure what to do about them, but I count on my muse to visit me in my dreams tonight.

I still think the stem is ok'ish. The problem with the leaves is that the end of the leaf can't really get that pointy as I want it to be, and as you tat it's very floppy unless you can attach them several places. As you can see I tried attaching the right one (the first I made) twice on the stem, but it just looks bad. I also wanted to have some width in the leaves, but that didn't really work either. Hmm...Oh muse, ascend!

Snowdrop in an egg

The last 2 days I've been working on an Easter Egg with a Snowdrop inside. The border I made, turned out really well, and I think I will use it for a heart later as well - I was almost tempted to make it heartshaped instead of oval, when I did it.

The Snowdrop...hm...the petals were really easy, but the stem and leaves.../sigh. I ended up liking most of the stem and the one leaf, but the other leaf is horrible. I hoped that some sugar syrup would be able to fix it, but I guess even the biggest amount of sugar can't cure bad design.

I could of course cut of the bad leaf and make a nicer looking one, but even though I love sugar in all possible ways, sugar on my fingers doesn't count. :P Anyway...now the whole thing is drying in my kitchen, and I'll post a pic tomorrow, hopefully, horrible leaf or not.

Pattern for the Flower necklace

I was asked to write down the pattern for the Flower necklace, so here it is. I haven't test tatted the pattern yet, so please beware - there might be errors. If you find some, please let me know. I also forgot to add one thing on the pattern: It actually needs 2 X shuttle and 2 X ball thread, there are loads of split rings and a single downwards picot. It sounds worse than it is, though. ^_^

While I wrote down the pattern I had a revelation, that I have to share with you: It's neck-lace!! :o Sorry, I know it's horrible dad-humor (all dads seems to have this huge amount of bad jokes, which we call dad-humor in danish. Maybe it's the same in other languages? Or maybe your dads are just different from ours :P).

The last couple of days I also worked on a new design for a flower, but so far the result is eh...well...lets just say that I will await further inspiration before posting...

ZOMG! I finished a project!!! \o/

I'm so happy. I finally finished a project I've been working on since before Christmas. The observant eye might recognize the central flower. Yes, it is in fact a re-use of the flower from the Red Horror Heart design I made for Sharon's design class. It's needless to say that I quit the Red Horror project, but I did like the flowery thing very much. I just had to come up with some way to use it. I spend quite some time doing different sketches in hand (mainly Art Noveau inspired), but what works on paper doesn't always work when tatted. Thus, I also spend quite some time re-tatting and re-sketching. This is the end result, and I'm very happy with it. :D

A little extra help

I've been working on my son's costume for Fastelavn, which is a Danish holiday we celebrate a bit like the Americans celebrate their Halloween with trick or treat etc, except our costumes don't have to be scary. It used to be the final celebration before the 40 days of fasting, back from when Denmark was Catholic. We stopped being catholic but kept the party. :P

Anyway...My son who is 8 years old decided to be a punk-rocker, and on the picture you can see me sew some 'bracelets' out of fake leather to him. Later I put some studs in them aswell. Ofc. I also made him a nice studded collar, and I cringed a ring from a jewelry lock set up, put some soft thingie on the on end, and now it serves as a nose ring. I guess the days where he wanted to be a cute, cuddly animal is now definitively over. :-S To be sure I would finish in time, Aiko the Empress is giving me a most helpful paw. :P

Spiderbag, spiderbag

My unique photographer skills shows again. :P It's bright daylight outside, but somehow the picture shows up very dark. The fabric has such nice creamy color but here it looks all boring grey. :(

I actually planned for the bag to be a bit bigger, but the edging wasn't as long as I remembered. Actually I did this edging, before I did the choker. As the observant eye might discover, it's actually the same pattern. When I did the edging I liked the look of it against my wrist so much that I decided I would put2 edgings together (opposite) to a bracelet or a choker.  

I had originally planned for the bag to have some kind of handles as well, but when I was almost finished I couldn't really see how I could make any handles look good. I guess it needs a completely different design (or a lot better imagination than mine :P). I tried to put some stiffening material on the lower part of it, and it worked quite well, I think. The lining is black taffeta, and inside I also made a couple of pockets, which could be kinda handy. One of them I made lipstick side, which I thought awfully clever of me, until I realized that I will never carry it on a night out when it has no handles. Duh. Now I guess I can put...pencils and paper clips in it...or something like that. /cry. I really need to figure out those handles.