10 minutes tat

I had to finish the thread on a shuttle, so I played.

Pattern for a simple pair of earrings

1 shuttle pattern.

Fun fact: you can stop after various phases and you will still have something interesting.

Not difficult at all, fast to be done and if you have a young pupil, it is perfect to give it to her during the class... She will not feel that she made the folded join or the lock join, promise! 

I choose to make these instructions like this, with pictures, I know it helped me a lot when I found something in this form. Honestly, I spent more time by taking the pictures and to process them than for the actual tatting. 

	This is all you need. The bead has a large hole, large enough to let the chain pass through.
	Secure the begining of the chain with a paper clip.
	Start to tat the chain. 60 ds. Of course you can change the amount of ds as you like, this part will hang anyway behind your bext element.
	What you need now is to place the bead. Mine has 1,5mm hole, enough to be strung on the chain.
	Remove the paper clip and string the pearl.
	Make join lock to close the chain and to form it as a ring.
	Now start the flower. 7-7-7-7 in my case. I have a very fine thread, so my flower vill have max. 2 cm diameter.
	Without the picots for the upper ring now you have a small ring, or pendant, right?
	I continued. Still you can stop at this point, you will still have something to make a finished object.
	But I continued. Now this could be a pendant… Or with a pearl still an earring.
	But I finished my flower. I wanted it a six petal one.
	Why? You can fold it, see?
	And if yo add a pearl in a ring, it is happy enough.

Small, simple things may bring a lot a satisfaction. Remember when you made the first flower? This is the feeling you will never loose. I don't know you, but after I finish the simpliest flower, I take a break to feel it in my hands. Dumm enough.

Back to the pattern topic. I wanted to start to make some. Mined field, I know. I have already submitted 2 of them in my Etsy shop. They are very simple.

One of them is a beaded rosette. The pattern is simple but in the instructions I put clear explanations (diagrammed ones) of the beads placement on the shuttle (for 1 and for 2 colors) and the possible variations. It can be a pendant or, with some variations, a nice beaded snowflake.

The second one, is a flower, an orchid. This time it has the visual pattern and the pictures of the different prases.

Have fun! And if you decide to give a try to this 10 minutes pattern, please let me know. I am curious to see all your ideas, you are all sooo creative!

Second experience in the Virtual Showroom

In July I found a Facebook page, a pretty interesting one. It is Revista promocionarte. I was intrigued my the name, I adore this kind of wordgames, anagramms to be more accurate. For the non Spanish spoken, I will try to explain it. Promocionarte can be read in 2 ways: promotion + arte (easy to understand) and promocionar + te (to promote you). Got it? Studying psychology was a good move for the admin, Carmen Moreno Martin. Great trick! At least it worked for me.

What is she doing? She is also a crafter, and a good one. But she had also the brilliant idea to make a platform where crafters can meet and interract. There are 2 ways, one is the blog: http://revistapromocionarte.blogspot.com.es/ and the other one is the Facebook account: https://www.facebook.com/revistapromocionarte. Not only she helps the other ones, but she manages somehow to bring them toghether in a dymanic way.

Every month she organizes an event: this Virtual Showroom. The idea is to promote yourself and to promote the other ones too. Not that new, as an idea. I was even skeptic in July. But it paid off. Thais Arias from the radio broadcast El Día  (Al día con la moda) contacted me because she found my pieces interesting. It was an live interview on the 24th of July of 10 minutes, a least it seemed that long for me. I would have loved that Carmen herself could have been there. After all, it is her idea and she is the speaks better Spanish than I do.

In September I'm in again. I could not miss it. Part, SEO stuff, but mainly I want to show that with tatting we can make so beautiful pieces, unique ones. If I manage this, I will be happy. This was the collage I made to present my work:

I am happy that a member of the CanaryIslandsTeam from ETSY is also part of this adventure. She is Ana Fernandez Alarcon from LindaPaula. Funny thing: she WANTS to move to tatting! Yupppy!

The event will end this midnight. Then, time to move on. 

I have to finish some pieces I will post them next week. 

All rings pattern for 1 shuttle

I needed to make a test of a new thread a got and from one shuttle some more thread remained. I gave it some good use: testing the thread, tatting with beads and inserting pearls in another way I found in one of the books of Irina's Astratenko.

This is the result:

You cannot see in the image, but the thread is a 40 variegated Brildor... strand of 3. 

It is only rings, so you will use 1 shuttle. 

String 1 yellow, 1 red, 1 yellow (this will be used at the last ring) and then 6 times this sequence of seed beads: 1 yellow, 1 red, 1 yellow, 1 white.

Remember: you have to keep in mind that you have to string the beads in reverse order, so you will use first the last bead you strung. Hope it makes sense. This is important only when you have more than 1 color or different sizes. 

So... You start the ring with the first white seed bead in the llop: 4 - 8 - bp 4 - 8. Do not turn work.

Take the next 3 seed beads, hold them firmily between your thumb and index. Take the next white seed bead, make the loop and start the next ring: 4 + 8 bp  4 - 8. 

And so on, until you will have all six rings. 

The rings will tend to curve. If you use only 2 seed beads between the rings, it will curve more, if you use 4 you will have a a nice beaded curved chain inside the bow. Just an idea... I intend to make a complete round but in green with red and white seed beads, it might give a nice wreath.  

Now you turn the work and attack the big ring. 

There is now a trick! You might need a very fine crochet hook or dental floss folded in 2. 

Bring the last 3 seed beads and make the loop for the last ring. 

Work the first half of the ring. Take the dental floss, take the loop thread like if you want to string a bead. Get this floss from underneath of the work between the first ring and the first seed bead, bring enough thread on the upper side of the lace. Now you can string the bigger pearls (mine are 3 mm each) and secure them with a paperclip. And then finish the ring 15ds  bp (with the last 3 seed beads) 15 ds. Close the ring. And then bring the paperclip at the base of the ring and make lock join. 

This diagramm could help a bit: 

Finally, you have to get something like this: 

If you will work with a thicker thread as mine, you should adjust the amound of ds... My piece is really tiny: 2 cm long and 1,5 cm wide... 

Should not be that complicated. 

The last lock join... Make sure you close the last ring completelly  and evenly... Being a big ring, you could consider closing it little by little, sliding gently the first double stiches to the starting point, holding them in place between the lest thumb and indes and pulling the shuttle thread as often as you need. Like this, the ds are more even, at least this method does the job for me. It takes a while to close a ring, but the result pays off. 

Have fun!