Preparing for Finger Lakes Tatting Conference

The Finger Lakes Tatting Conference is next week, and I'll be teaching there! The "Fantasy Flower" is the project that I'm teaching.

I'm currently preparing step-outs, or samples in various stages of completion, to help the participants understand the structure of how the flower shape develops. There's about 15 people in each class! Mostly all experienced tatters, so I've been told. Even so, a very large class for tatting.

I've been experimenting with the live video craze on Periscope, but with dismal (blurry, pixelated) results. I've tried better lighting, but that didn't help. So, I've come to the conclusion that the Internet speed available at my location just isn't fast enough for live broadcast. I'll continue to make regular (not live) videos instead.

Looking forward to meeting many tatters at the Finger Lakes Tatting Conference!

Tatting an Onion Ring from the back side

If doing a project using front side / back side tatting, sometimes an onion ring will need to be tatted from the back side. Tat the inner ring using reverse order double stitches (2nd half first, 1st half second).

Bring the shuttle thread behind the ring, then start tatting the outer ring, also with reverse order double stitches.

When doing the join, pull a loop of the thread from the working circle OVER the shuttle thread and through the picot.

Make sure that the loop isn't twisted, then put the shuttle through.

Tighten the join as you would any normal join. Then, continue tatting reverse order double stitches.

Close the outer ring, keeping it behind the inner ring.

The completed onion ring from the back side.

The completed onion ring from the front side.

Hand dyed "Leafy" and "Stardate"

The "Leafy" batch is subtly shaded medium leaf greens, which are always useful to compliment showier flower colors. "Stardate" is an out of this world amazingly vibrant combo.

I'm tatting and photographing new things like mad, but can't show any of that at present. A publisher offered me the opportunity to do a book, I've got classes coming up, so I'm busy busy! More details later.