All my picots were leaning to the left! What the .... ? When I blocked it I was able to straighten them out but it was an odd thing and had nothing to do with the design but all to do with how I tat.
Being very curious as to why this happened I picked some more thread and started tatting it again, same thing...all the picots leaned to the left. I had to figure out what I was doing to cause this and correct it! So I started stitching it again and paid careful attention to what I was doing when making a picot. What I discovered was surprising to me and might help others so I thought I'd share.
For those who don't tat, a picot is made by having a gap between the double stitches and the thread is carried across this space then the next double stitches (DSs) are pushed next to the prior ones so the carried thread bends up to make the pretty little picot loop. Well, when I was making mine I was using my left hand (I'm right handed) to pull the DS's over to those already done. This put my thumb and index fingertips on the DS and picot loop but because I was 'pulling to the left' the loop was also 'pulled to the left'.
Once I saw this was the cause of the problem I tried different ways to correct it. I tried tightening the shuttle thread to make it slide the DSs over...didn't work for me, it just made my stitch tension uneven. I tried pushing the already done stitches to the right to meet up with the new stitch...nope, that also pushed the picot loop out of whack. I tried pushing the new stitch over to the existing stitches with my right thumb and index finger...ah ha...better...but still not quite right. Then I tried something new...I tried using my right hand fingernails instead of fingertips to slide the new DSs over to the previous ones (not that easy to do because I don't have long fingernails)...WHALLAA ! The picots were correctly looped and positioned!
So I redid my little Sweet Rose snowflake doing the picots by sliding the DSs with my fingernails...and here's the result...nice pretty little picots. I can't show you the other "leaning" one because I can't find where I put it. Ugh.
Motif # 19:
What works for me will probably not work for everyone but if someone else is having a 'leaning picot' problem..maybe this info will help.
Well, well .. I have never come across a 'leaning picot' problem before. I am glad you found the cause and solution for it.
ReplyDeleteThank you for tatting my pattern. I love the blue.
Your snowflake is beautiful and I love the color!!! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks all. I'm rather fond of that color blue myself.
ReplyDeleteAnd Jon, I love your patterns!
This work looks good. No problem here, so you have overcome the problem. When making the last stitch of the picot, I pull the whole picot towards my thumb with the shuttlethread. That works for me. Everybody has his own way, I guess.
ReplyDelete