Fringe... sort of

Corina tried to get in the snowflake mood. Toke a pattern tried to work it. Then she finds a lost thread of gold metallic Finca thread and the pattern gets forgotten. It is again one of the "Lets start the party" moments.
It did this:

 

See those threads? No picots cut at the end. Easy to see that the golden thread stay on the core thread. I do not know if this is already dowe and how. I am sure someone did it, but I did not see it yet. Please, if you identify a known technique, let me know, to give the right credits. 

My first test was done with simple macramé knots done on the core thread. Jane Eborall inspired me to try to use picots, when she mentionned the feelers for critters. And yes, I rushed to look at her superbe tutorials. Did not find yet this one. 

Main idea: who said that we can tat only beads into the lace??

What you need: 1 shuttle and a ball (CTM). A thread of a second colour.

Start by working chain on your shuttle with very long picots. As many as you estimate you will use. (my case: 7  x 6). The more even, te better. Cut those picots at the upper part, distribute them and just fill the shuttle. Treat them as beads. 

  

 Start tatting. When the moment comes (my sequence was 5 - 2 7 of those metallic thread fringes sep. by 1 ds, picot, 5, close) bring one of the knots with fringes in position then work the ds.

A bit uncomfortable at first but after a while, it gets better. It is sooo simple!!!
Keep only in mind that you will have to count this fringe as a ds... So you might need to re-think a bit before the pattern.

This little baby was done in less than 30 mins. Trim those fringes to give them a shape. 

I see this quite interesting for an aura for an angel, my husband suggested the winks for an angel, the snow as a border for a Christmas tree, a garland. 

Imagine a Josephine chain with fringes which get gradually longer... got your attention a bit?

Happy tatting. 

Picots gauge 3 in 1, simple math

I do not really like the picots but for certain pieces I must admit, they are a must! I admire all the tatters working respectig all the rules of the tatting art and technique. And I always wondered: how do they manage to make so beautiful and even picots. The answers vary from picot gauge, bought or self made, ice cream stiks and the winner: "eye gauge".

Not for me. I would not have the patience to use 3-4 different picots gauges. But the idea came in my head, because I needed recently to make a very large picot, and to repeat it several times. 

Si I gave it a thought... Simple math question actually. All the picots gauges I saw were fractions of 1 inch... So why not just 1 instead of 3 or 4? Tatting is, after all, manipulating thread with our shuttles how we want to get what we want. (Do I feel the smile? The thought about the miss-tattings crosses my mind right now). 

Math is simple: the picot we do has the half of the thread we use to make it, right?

So I started. I made an example of a picot gauge for only 3 sizes of picots, starting the 1cm wide one. 

Tat and make the first picot normally, using the gauge in the normal way. You take 10mm thread, you get a 5mm picot. Nothing spectacular. 

For the second picot I marked the middle of my "gauge". I place the last ds at the mark and make the picot. I have now used 15 mm and I got a 7,5mm (more or less) picot. 

 

For the longest picot, I place the last ds in a way that I wrap the gauge with thread when I make the picot. 

 

For this demonstration I stopped here, with 1 cm, 7,5 mm and 5mm picot.  

You can with a bit of imagination mark your own points on the gauge, so you can have control of what you want to have. Do not forget that the back side of the gauge will have the full lenght of thread. 

Hope this helped. I know I will play a bit longer with this thing.