BUT! tonight while looking for something completely different, there was one of my purchases - a cro-tat pamplet, with cro-tat hook and small amount of thread in it. I tried again, and again watched the same videos I have before. The ds is very much like doing it with needle tatting, but the part I always failed at was getting the hook back thru those stitches, much the same way that you make a bouillion stitch.
As it happens, the thread they put in this kit was about size 10, but seems to be 2 ply, AND the slightest tug on it and it just shreds apart, like you were pulling on a cotton ball! I kept shredding my thread and so thought, I'm just going to keep going, this is only practice anyway, BUT, I will need to make my stitches a lot looser if I'm going to do this without shredding the thread. BINGO! What had stopped my success before was putting on the ds as tightly as I do on a tatting needle, and no hook could pass thru them. Now it is finally moving thru, unhindered. My first practice flower was a real nightmare, so uneven and showing no promise. But, the second one improved enough that I decided to start making the next pattern that has the flower for the center and then a simple set of rings around. Well..... my rings are all different sizes, and looking very odd. Yet, somehow I am delirious with the prospect of actually being able to make all those patterns I bought before! I will finish this flower coaster thing, and then, see if I can graduate to a better thread. That is another problem with this, it can't be pulled tight, and however you do manage to get the stitches to form, they just start going limp and sliding out, picots disappearing completely. But if not for this terrible thread, I'd never have understood that my stitches were too tight, and learned how to do this!
These are both pretty horrible and wonky, but I'm excited to see even a small improvement in the second one, and so you see I've added onto to start the coaster from it. Worst one on top, the somewhat better one on the bottom, compared to pattern pic.
The outer rings on the pattern are my next problem area. All of the 3 rings I've made are different sizes, and look pretty lopsided and wonky, but I hope to gain experience as I go, and have them start improving before I'm done. You really can't take them out like you could crochet. It is just like regular tatting, once you've closed it, you'd pretty much have to cut it out to re-do any part of it.
I also tatted on my Fiona hippo last night A.M. hours, and my Spinning Wheel Glass Mat brown & ecru version, this afternoon. But tonight I learned cro-tatting! WOOT!
Later Friday, 9:46pm:
Well, it's done ~ and it's wiggly and wobbly, but I'm just tickled that I was able to do it!
1 comment:
Your cro-tatting is much better looking than mine. Well done! I have wrist issues so the movement to chain can be painful. I'll stick to tatting I think
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