Free Tatted Scarf Pattern

I've been toying with the idea of offering up tatting patterns here for quite a while. I was always a little afraid that I would alienate my non tatting friends and since my skills at pattern writing are negligible, I assumed my experienced tatting friends would be completely uninterested as well. As I was finishing up a new scarf yesterday, I decided that it was the piece to cut my pattern offering teeth on. It's a very simple pattern, so all those just starting out or returning to tatting after a time will have something interesting to try out. The beauty of this piece is that even though it is simple, the finished project looks like much more complicated design.

First off a little yarn choosing information. I like to use hand dyed super wash merino sock yarn. If you search for that on etsy, you will find every possible color combination imaginable. Other comparable choices include, sport weight or baby yarn. You can certainly choose thinner or thicker yarns, but that will change the dimensions of the scarf. I'd also like to point out that I am a needle tatter and though I'm certain that shuttle tatting with yarn is possible, I have no expertise in that field as what kind of shuttle to use. For your needle, you want to pick the smallest needle that you can easily thread your yarn choice through.

Now the pattern, the scarf consists of two mirrored rows of a pattern I call 'simple vine'. While I came up with this pattern myself some time ago, it occurs to me that as simple as it is, it existed long before I 'designed' it, I just haven't run across it yet. I'm going to write this longhand just in case my shorthand version only makes sense to me.

Row 1:

Ring 6 double stitches, 1 picot, 6 double stitches, close and reverse work.
Ring 6 double stitches, 1 picot, 6 double stitches, close and reverse work.
Chain 6 double stitches, 1 picot, 6 double stitches, close and reverse work.
*Ring 6 double stitches, join to last ring, 6 double stitches, close reverse work.
Ring 6 double stitches, 1 picot, 6 double stitches, close and reverse work.
Chain 6 double stitches, 1 picot, 6 double stitches, close and reverse work.
Repeat from * to whatever length you desire ending with 2nd ring of pattern

The second row mirrors the first and joins at matching picots. The pictures should give you a good idea of where the joins are.

That's all there is to this one, I hope that all made sense. Just a few more bits of, well, let's call it wisdom. It you're not ready for yarn tatting yet, you can use this same pattern with size 10 thread to make yourself a bracelet or choker. Simply change the length to whatever you need. The reverse holds true as well. If you've got a nice symmetrical bookmark pattern the length can be altered to make a bracelet or choker and if you change to yarn it will probably make a great scarf. The whole reason I've been able to come up with interesting pieces is that I look beyond what a pattern is written for to what it could be and anyone can do that.

Please feel free to use this pattern for your own use and share the results with me. If you wish to make pieces to sell, please contact me first.

I hope this wasn't too boring to all those non-tatters out there. Maybe I have even inspired a few of you to take up tatting too.

The scarf will be on sale in my etsy store just as soon I finish here. The yarn used for this scarf was from Onecrazystitch.etsy.com

Oh, The Horror...The Horror

You might have noticed that I was suspiciously absent yesterday. If you did not, then this story will not be particularly relevant, but I shall tell it anyway. Just as I was sitting down to write, my access to the Internet ceased. I am horribly spoiled to have a computer technician as a husband, but when he is at work and I am left to my own devises I am inept. Of course I called him right after checking the "easy" stuff, but as I feared I would just have to wait until he came home to see if it was anything he could fix.

I found myself in the uncomfortable position of not being able to check my email, list my new pieces on etsy or any of my usual morning activities. I know it's not the end of the world, but I have become so used to having the world at my fingertips that being unintentionally cut off for even a few hour was, well, uncomfortable. I can do it voluntarily of course, I can go on vacation, play outside with the kids or just simply avoid the computer if I so choose, but to have it taken away without my prior approval is horrible.


Today however, is another day. Clearly the problem has been resolved and my information addiction is being fed. So back to the usual stuff. I have listed two of the three new pieces inspired by the choker I was talking about in my last post. I've renamed the whole collection, La Petite Goth because it makes the sound fancy. I've got just the last one to make up and it will be complete. I am really surprised that it took me this long to come up with these. They are such simple diversions from the original design.

Speaking of design, I just finished a wonderful special order request. I was challenged to recreate a rose and vine tattoo as a tatted anklet. This isn't the first time my tatting has been compared to a tattoo, but it is the first time I designed a piece to look like one on purpose. I am again, mighty proud of the rose motif i came up with. It's simple, but I think it looks just like a rose. It does, right?

Now, back to work. I've got so many ideas swirling around and I need to work on them before I forget half of them.