Pattern for the pendant

I was fooling around with seed beads latelly, a bit too intensive. I made a lot of tests, small elements. All piled up in my box and I had to use them, somehow.
So I put two of them toghether, with a pearl. As simple as that. Nothing new, almost boring.

It is a normal small 6 petal flower, done with 1 shuttle. 

String 24 beads on the shuttle. Take 3 beads and make the loop for the ring. Start ring, 8 - 8 bring the 3 beads from the loop and take a bead from the shuttle, make a bead picot, 8-8, close. Guess anyone has done it at least one time. 

The tricky part is the middle element.
You work with 2 shuttles or 1 shuttle and the ball.
String 24 beads on the shuttle. Take 18 beads and make a loop to start a ring. You must have 6 beads left on the shuttle.
The first round (the black one in the pattern) is a ring.
3 ds, bead picot (3 beads + 1 bead from the shuttle), 3 ds, picot, 3 ds bead picot (as previous)... repeat until the beads from the loop are used, close the ring.
As you see, after the last beaded picot, there are only 3 ds.

Second round, all chains. (red line in the pattern)
5ds lock join between the beads, 3 - 3, lock join around the upper bead, 5 ds lock join to the picot.

When you make the picots from the ring, you might consider to make it a bit bigger, so you can find it easily after the ring is closed. When closed, the beads will tend to hide this tiny picot. Good light, a fine hook and a lot of patience can help. I am sure, you will find  away to do it. 

I tried to add 1 ds between the picots of the first round, but the size of the ring is not a good one. At least, for the thread I used, the tiny one, it was not nice to see. 

Disregard, please, the proportions of the second pattern... I did not find a better way to do it. 

What is left, is to sew toghether the 2 parts. Done. I think it would make a nice, sparkling Chrismass decoration too. 

My middle element has pink seed beads and silver seed beads at the base... If you want to do it too, when you string the seed beads, do it as follows: 18 seed beads (they will go on the loop for the ring and will be placed on the outer side of the ring) + 6 seed beads of a different color (they will stay on the shuttle thread and will be at the inner side of the ring). 

Have fun, if you will try it. 

New tests and a small pattern

I was working these days with some pearls and Toho beads. It is quite challenging to strand them on both my shuttles and then couting them while making the lace. This was the ennoying part, actually. One bead too much or missing from the ring loop, and this was it... And since I used the Lavsan Thread, (a 3 strand), it was quite some pain. Result? This one:

 My husband declares that he loves this set more than the more complicated ones... I want to make it also in white, it would be perfect for a bride, I think.

And with this bracelet I played also with some pearls:

2 rounds

Ring 8 - 7- 8, turn work 

Chain 16, turn work

Repeat 4 times

Do not reverse work

String 1 pearl on the lower thread (shuttle) secure it with a paper clip. 

Start chain 7 - 7 (for my 3 mm pearl it was ok)

Do not reverse work 

Start ring... 

And so on. As simple as that. 

When you reach the desired lenght, you just make a complete rosette  (you might consider adding some ds between the 2 rounds, to avoid that the rosette curves). 

Long story short: 

The chain of the pearl shoud have the picot at the height of the join picots of the half-rosette from the first round. You might maybe, do one test according to the bead you will use. 

Have fun and let me know if there are mistakes in the pattern please.

How I put my beads with some sort of dental floss

I shared some time ago a pattern of an tatted element having a bead strung on a chain.

I saw from a looong thread in FB that, apparently, there are some struggling to work this element, but do not understand really how I placed it. Not that difficult and I did not discovered America again.

First of all, the bead must have a hole big enough to let pass the chain. So you should first search for that bead fitting to what you want to go. Me, personally, I work only with very thin thread, so part of my problem is solved. But if you try to work the pattern with a Lizbeth 20 or even 40, you might should reconsider.

This for a start.

Because I wanted it like this, I started, instead of a ring (the bigger ring in the middle of the element), with a chain, placing a paper clip to make sure that I can close it when I'm done. When I finished the chain, I used my special tool. Not a dental floss but a better one. My son plays guitar and I am always demanding him to bring me the broken strings. The tiniest one is perfect for me: it is thin, even thinner than my thread, made out of steel, so it is resistent. Just perfect. (by the way, if I do not pay attention, it gets easily lost...)

This is what I use to place the beads between the picots, because it lets me a tiny part of the picot available and the join is really clean. Working with a thin tread, so I need it, instead of a paper clip.

This seems to be the problem:

So, the sequence was the following: start chain (paper clip, of course, like this you will have a picot when you remove it), work your chain. And then you have 2 choices.
1. Remove the paper clip, use the "tool" to secure the picot, place the pearl with the large hole ON the chain, make the join and close the ring.
2. Place the bead on a fine crochet hook, remove the paper clip, use the crochet to place the bead...

I made really quickly some pictures to show how I use this tool I have, there is no tatting in there, just the instructions.

Of course, you must be a bit familiar with tatting with beads but this is not that difficult.
I hope this helps the tatting friends from Italy. Better to explain it in my blog, that to write novels as comments in threads.
Titine did a gread job with this pattern: She tricked it nicelly. Her picture is here.

Pattern for the beaded flower

As I told before... beads phase im my tatting.
I just made this flower and someone wanted the pattern. It is not a big deal, it is not difficult at all.
Starting element is the most common 6 petal flower done with 1 shuttle. There are some beads on it. The second round just goes around the flower and the beads. This is the part wich gives a nice shape.
I guess someone else wiser and smarter tham me has to have found this idea before, but I never saw it. If it is the case, I apologize and I will be grateful if someone can point me the author, if there is one.

The pattern is done for a 12 Anchor Freccia  thread (like the 60 DMC, if I remember it correctly).

What you need: 30 seed beads.

Wind your shuttle and put the 30 seed beads on the thread.

Take 4 seed beads and start the ring. 8ds - 8ds - 3beads from the loop and 1 from the shuttle 8 close. The fourth bead from the loop will remain at the base of the ring.
Repeat 5 times, making the joins to form the flower.
Cut thread.
Easy.

Second round: all chains. (marked red)
Begin from the join picotsof the flower.
Chain 12ds, make lock join to the thread between the 2 seed beads.
Chain 4 ds - 4ds lock join after the bead on top.
Chain 12 ds lock join at the picot from the flower.
Repeat until the round is complete.

What I noticed while playing with this pattern.
For the outer round, you shoud add not more than 4 ds at the amount of ds used as a base for the flower. My case here: 8 for the flower, 12 for the outer chain. Less ds do not bring a nice shape, more ds will make a nasty join with overlaping chains.
When you make the lock joins for the outer round, you should consider passing the thread through the picot and not bellow the picot from the flower. Result: a smoother transition. When I made the join fom the lower part of the picot, I had a knottier join and a longer part of the thread was visible. Not nice.
The nastiest part: the join where the flower was closed... Patience needed.
If you use beads bigger than 1mm -1,5 mm, you should replace the 4 - 4 sequence with something fitting to your material.

Swap fever

I got the first introduction to the swap idea some time ago. I wanted to give it a try, so I put my name on the list. The hard part was about to come, working for it. It is one thing to give life to your ideas freely, just let my shuttle to make the ds as they fit better and a completelly other thing is to think: does it fit? does it bring some joy?
Preparing a present for someone you know is sometimes hard, but for a complete stranger is for me even harder.
I put up my head and hands to work ant I made a shy tatted necklace and a bracelet. Simple lines, no picots, just pearls and golden chain. The necklace is not symetric and the pearl in the center floates somehow but that's the charm of it...

 

 

For the second swap (yes, there was a second one too), I got bolder. A white and royal blue neclace with pearls. All tatted, Ankars style, ring on ring method. It was not the first time I used this pattern. My wrist watch has it, in a more complexe variant. 

There are 5 elements all put toghether. The flowers and the split chains, the lateral sides and the central element (the one from the pattern from the last blog post).

Result? 

The pattern for the central part is here, I just added a small blue flower underneath, a bigger white one to give it a nice aspect on the backside too and I left 2 petals on the upper part of the element. I sewed them togheter, joined the chains with a pearl element and this was it. Chouchoutte loved it... I hope. 

I forgot, of course, to write something about the technique... It was taken for some sort of macramé, not that far away, I would say, also knots, wright? And we can also finger tat... 

Now I struggle with pearls... all the way... I made some test patterns, I will have to make some research if they are not already done. I miss somehow a good personal library with all kind of elements nicely organized. I always am affraid that the ideas I have may have been published already... The white flowers are similar to the camelias pattern, without the use of teh seed beads... 

The orange flower is to be disregarded... it is just a test to see how this thread works with white glue for fixing... So far, so good. 

Game of beads

I make all kind of tests, I play with a lot of ideas... Sometimes I end up by spoling thread and time, the beads I can always re-use. I should, once, take a snapshot of my table (it is the coffee table in front of the TV)... It is full of cut ends, tests, loose seed beads. A mess, I have to admit.
I learned my lesson the hard way: I play, learn, test with bad thread. When I am happy with the result, I will make the same pattern with a better thread.
The last two pieces are a bracelet and a necklace. They wait for the clasps and I will make them in other colours too.

For the bracelet you can recognize the starting pattern idea. I am pretty happy with the small flower, it enhances a bit the effect. 

The necklace started a a test and the idea got somehow body. Guess I am now in playing with beads mood. Still thinking about a pearl for the pendant...
Both of the patterns I will make them in white and in black for sure.

Pattern for a small element

I am still in the search of patterns... all day long. But the ones I want, the Ankars ones, are nicelly hidden, for a good reason. I found some, like all of the ones interested in it, but just copying is not that funny.
The patterns wich really helped me understand were the one I call "for dummies"... the picture ones. I guess they have a name, did not find it yet.

So I played with my tatting and my phone camera. I put the result toghether in a pdf file. It is just an element of a bigger piece, the tricky part of it. It involves the ROR, both of them. It is not that difficult, but there are some parts where full attention and a lot of patience are needed.

Pattern and instructions for a small tatted element. I used it as a lower part of a earring pair.

The thread used for the pattern is not the ideal one, a polyester thread  brings a better effect. 

Here you have the link, since I have no idea how I can upload a PDF file in the blog. 

Please let me know if there is something to correct.