On the left, the Ribbon Floss Snowflake from Vida Sunderman's Tatted Snowflakes. One of my favorite's from the book -- simple and quick yet elegant. On the right, Yarnplayer's Pointed Snowflake.
Top left corner and thence clockwise: Candlelight Snowflake - I learned Loop-Tatted Rings for this one and am currently enamored of them. More on that later. A modification of the Pointed Snowflake -- trying to make the points come out less pointy and with less negative space, which was probably working against the main goal of the design and so it serves me right that it didn't turn out as I hoped. A doodle I found on the internet last year - SCMR Snowflake 1 by Sally Magill. An old design found in DMC Tatting for Today #15209. The Tenth Day of December from Lene Bjorn's 24 Snowflakes. (Coincidentally I began it on Dec 10th, while paying no attention to the date.) Stellar, by Frivole. A motif from Blomqvist and Persson's useful book. And in the middle we have Elmo's Snowflake. (Very similar to the Ribbon Floss Snowflake, but subtly different -- fun to tat them in the same fortnight and note the difference.)
Kira's Star by Birgit Phelps. Will be tatting this one many many times.
Top left corner clockwise: The Seventh Day of December - of course this is Lene Bjorn again. A vintage design kindly modernised two years ago by Gina the Tatting Goddess. (Her blog was the first tatting blog I ever found and this snowflake, which is one of my favorites, is a perfect example of the legacy she left us.) And Betsy's Snowflake, which I tried on a whim and liked much better than I thought I would.
On the left, Minaret Snowflake, and on the right, Spoke Snowflake, both from Vida Sunderman. Both quick, easy, and effective, and both look much better in person than in the book. This is a common problem with snowflakes from this book -- perhaps the photography was approached in the wrong way? I don't know. The Spoke Snowflake has the distinction of being my last snowflake of 2012; finished around 11 PM while playing Trivial Pursuit with my family at our annual New Year's Eve game night. Trivial Pursuit is always the last game played and consequently the most hilarious (as the late hour and increasing amounts of sugar always ensure.) This year it featured some creative cheating by my dad and sister, who surreptitiously acquired an extra die, managing to come up with rolls such as seven or ten to help them move around the board more freely than the rest of us relying on the standard one die.
And finally, the first snowflake of 2013! This is from Rozella Linden's Easy Tatting, which is one of the few books I have owned since my early days of tatting, a decade ago. Sadly, this inaugural snowflake is marred by a nasty mistake. I was fully round the next point by the time I saw it and so I let it go, glaring as it is.
Here is a "before" and after picture of my snowflake thread. All these snowflakes came from the same ball of white thread. On the left of the picture you see a ball identical to the original, and on the right is the ball after I tatted all the snowflakes. Counting the three snowflakes from my original 2012 snowflake post, I have tatted 20 snowflakes this year, and 20 snowflakes really did a number on that ball of thread!
Happy tatting in 2013! Watch this space for even more snowflakes... eventually.
