Thank you Tamara for posting the christmas ornament. Did you use metallic workers or are there beads on the edges. I just got new glasses but could not enlarge the larger picture close enough to see the details?
It was eeney-meeny... I could have taken either a detailed photo of a single ornament, or a less detailed one of the three together. Since I plan on publishing the pattern and a detailed photo of a single one will then be included (and Mery Christmas '03 removed)...
To answer your question: each trail consists of two pairs of thick matte thread (Bouc 36/2 linen in the blue one, Madeira 20/2 in the other two), with thin metallic thread for workers. But there are beads in there too; wherever two trails meet/bounce off one another, the workers go out and make picots (double, strangled <g>), and a bead is sewn in in the centre (where one would expect the trails to cross), using one thread each from both trails.
I liked your color schemes and the flowing designs.
Thanks. Did the best I could with what I had on hand re the colours (both in respect to thread and to beads); there wasn't time to go shopping
Just how did you work them where the tapes joined?
Ah well... :) Each trail was treated differently, though the same trail was treated the same way in all 3 ornaments. The central flower is made with one thick matte pair and two thin metallic ones (the pinholes are spaced close there). You add 3 thick pairs for the first trail/s (dependng on how you want to look at it: visually, it's a single trail; work-wise, its two -- each going out and then back in). Those 6 prs were finished with two buttonhole rolls, using the metallic as the worker, and sewing the rolls down to the bottom petal. Not the prettiest of finishes, but not too bad either. The metallic is the dominant thread in the petals anyway, so, using a metallic to make the buttonhole stitches around the rest of the threads and to sew the roll down (into the existing pinholes in the centre) covers up the other colour. Seen from the wrong side (and I try to hang them so they are viewed -- mostly -- from the right), all you see is the metallic being slightly intensified. I have to get to within 3-4" to see that it's more than just a slight colour variation.
The next 2/4 trails were the hard ones. They start in the centre, above the top petal, at a "crossing", that is with a bead. To be perfect, that's how they ought to end, too, but that was where I got stuck. Even with the first 6 pairs removed, I still had 18 left, 12 of them converging to a "crossing", and the remaining 6 (the outside trails, coming from the fleur-de-lys and into the tassel) also getting closer together. Not a very comfortable situation and, by then, I would already be interested in the next project, and less inclined to perfect the current one :) Sooo...
When I transcribe the notes (maybe even try to diagram it), I'll give the process the full treatment but, in essence, what I did was this:
The first set (the trail/s closer to the flower/compass rose) was worked "all through all" (as the first half of a spider). The 4 pprs were then knotted and cut short. Again, not the prettiest finish, but passable, even when seen from the wrong side. It would have been better to leave those threads long, and then sew them into the trails one by one, but I didn't have the patience :)
The metallic workers (2 prs) were carried onto the second trail (the one closer to the outer outline) and, again, "all through all" was applied to all the 8prs. But, this time, I kept the passives as well as the workers, and made a "pig tail" to the trail. It's a variation on the Grand Venetian Cord: one thread from each of the earlier trail workers wraps around each bundle. But, instead of *just* wrapping, each *buttonholes* around its bundle, before trading places in the centre -- keeps the threads nice and tight together and is easier to tension. The thick passives are discarded (one thread at a time from each bundle) until only the 4 metallic pairs (workers from both of the central trails) remain. They're incorporated into the outlining trails where those meet, and all 10 pairs (6 metallic, 4 passives) are bundled into the tassel.
I'm not ecstatic about the "pig tail" and about the loss of the matching bottom bead any more than I am about the way I finished the other two trails. But those ornaments are, after all, do-dads to hang on my tree once a year, not a magnum opus made for royalty; I decided that some *reasonable* compromise (between looks and stability) had to be made, or else I'd be like that writer in Camus' "Plague" -- polishing the first sentence for ever... :) They look good on the tree, even when viewed with a more stringent standard than a galloping horse, they'll hold their shape without starching, and I expect them to stand up to washing when necessary... What more can be asked of a do-dad made in 3-4 days?
http://lorien.emufarm.org/~tpd/windrose/windrose.html
Sherry, I loved your angel topper, very colorful. I especially liked your wing shapes, I have been working on wings all week trying to get a shape I liked. Nice tatting, I am envious, Lovely.
http://cooledgewebgraphics.com/sherry/default.htm
I liked Angelika myself and asked Sherry to send me a bigger photo. I've been wanting a tree-topper for several years but, somehow, never got around to designing one -- the ideas just don't seem to materialise -- and I hope that having hers in the file of images will be helpful. In the meantime... <VBG>... I hung Heshe (the jumping-jack spider which I carried around with me at the IOLI Convention -- with Lenka's @ design on the front and a Luton boater with lace streamer on its head) as this year's "tree king". It's been a resounding hit with my family; they all think it's *perfect* for the position, surveying its textile-tree domain :)
I'll have to take some photos of the set up. However, uploading them to the website may be a problem; the new OS seems to make a reasonably simple process (and one which I had *almost* learnt) more complex... Danek says it's a bug of sorts that can be "walked around". Unfortunately, I am not a techno-geek, so we'll see if he can "map out" the "walking around" process to the point where *I* can apply it. *Reliably*, not on a "guess as you encounter a new situation" basis... As I have several *other* puter lessons to take before his departure (Monday), and as they're all done in short spurts between kitchen duty and games of Scrabble...
----- Tamara P Duvall Lexington, Virginia, USA Formerly of Warsaw, Poland http://lorien.emufarm.org/~tpd/
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