Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Lessons Learned

Thought I would practice up for the peacock pattern that I have been studying.  
I thought the onion rings in this would be a good warm-up
 and they certainly were.

But, this is not what I expected.

#3/100                        Design by Roger aka Freedman

I have been so enamoured of Wendy’s four beautiful motifs, here, here, here (My favourite) and here, that I looked up Roger aka Freedman’s pattern and tatted this one.

I do not like what happened, but I have learned an awful lot from this particular exercise.

1) The Catherine Wheel joins are no longer an issue - Yah!  That is the good news...

2) The colours really disappointed me, I'm afraid.

The thread (Tatskool’s Spice Collection HDT’s)  is wonderful to work with and was a generous gift from Suneeti, but for some reason, I got irritated with these shades and had to add beads to keep my interest going. These days, I have not been using beads, as I am trying to concentrate on the stitches themselves.

3) The white circle after the onion rings is much too prominent and the motif loses the emphasis of the lovely floral shape of the next row, which is darker thread.  These two colours should have been reversed.  Live and learn. Valuable lesson in colour.

4) The pattern is written for needle tatters, so I just used the stitch count and carried on.

Where it called for a cut and tie, I used a split chain beginning, so I could segue to the next row, but I made a counting error and had to wing it at the end of the row, causing an unsightly blunder.  However, I did not lose my temper and figured out an escape route, hid it as best as I could and kept going.

In the end the mistake is not too terrible and I was able to accept the lack of perfection in a whole new way.  I am learning!

There were a few more things as well, but the hour is late and I cannot seem to recall what they were.

14 comments:

  1. Congrats, Fox! Wow, you learned sooo much! And the result is lovely! These little pieces attracted me too. Can't understand you have problems with the color, first look was not my favorit, yes. But when I got the second look very close to it, its very nice, because you see then te repetition of the colors and it gets a unit. I like the little golden beads sitting there instead of the poor little lonly picots:-)) Greetings from Guni

    ReplyDelete
  2. I saw the pic and my first thought was CAKE! It looks like a lovely decorated cake you see in the bakery window, and one's knees freeze and refuse to move while I drool at the thought.....hmmm, must be hungry.
    I like this, Fox. I like the white circle as it repeats the center onion ring colour and the final lacy row. I think it all flows together beautifully.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hihi, very nice imagination, cake that's what it looks like! Nutscake with cream! You are so right!
      So,just forget onions that moment ;-)

      Delete
    2. Hehe! Cake, yum!

      If our dear Fox had used the brown instead of the cream as she says in 3), the center would have been a true cookie!

      You are hard on yourself, Fox. It is lovely and your learning to accept lack of perfection sounds good - no one else would have noticed anyway!

      Delete
  3. Such nice words from you both! Thank you.

    I was so disappointed with it and your comments have certainly cheered me up!
    Fox : )

    ReplyDelete
  4. I absolutely love the colors you have here. I have always been partial to shades of brown like this and they just flow together nicely. Very subtle.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Looks good to me. I see what you mean about the light and dark shading, but it's still interesting. The onion rings are fab! They looked like little rolled caramels -- yummie!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I think it's beautiful! I do agree though, that the white color kinda washes out the lovely variegated just a little. Could part of it be the background though? Perhaps if it was on something that was brownish it would show up better? Maybe not though, I'm awful at color. My only inspirations come from what I see others do. I really like the pattern though. You've done a wonderful job on it and the true test of perfection isn't in doing it according to the pattern, it's accepting that you're not perfect and being able make your mistakes look like they belong there!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Suz said it best - it does look like cake - gingerbread type cake! and the colour of the outer flowers is lovely, as are the gold beads (Guni spotted those too). You have nothing to be disappointed about!

    Suneeti

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Suneeti,
      I think YOU gave me the gold beads! I just realized this. : ))

      Delete
  8. ooooh gingerbread. yummy, now I may have to go home from work and make some tonight. (slurping up the drool so I don't short out my keyboard)
    he he, I like your motif Fox.

    ReplyDelete
  9. From someone who is struggling to learn how to tat your piece is absolutely gorgeous and I am very envious of all your wonderful tatting skills!!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Hi Fox
    I like the colours, and it's a lovely motif, I am going to try this pattern too but I have a few things to do first.
    Margaret

    ReplyDelete