Lots of fingers and a couple of thumbs!!!

Off on another glove adventure!!!  This pair is already spoken for and I hope that they do finally get finished although I keep getting sidetracked by lesson plans!!!  

I’m enjoying my knitting and so, so glad I decided to teach myself the continental way to 'manipulate' the needles.  

I'm missing the variegated yarn, though!!!  I did buy some more variegated from a lady in the market a few weeks ago but I'll probably not use it this winter.  

Asking questions

First of all I must thank all the Etsy sellers who I contacted over the weekend.  You all graciously answered my query without asking me why I wanted to know the answer.  

The reason for my impromptu research was because a friend had bought a pattern and when she came to print it it was 10 pages long although the actual pattern was on only 2 pages.  

This set me off on my quest to find out the average size of patterns of the same  type and complexity (small coaster/doily size).  The reasoning was because from the 'get go' I've always tried sooooo hard to save on paper and ink when I produce a pattern.  This has and always will be a big factor for me as we're destroying our planet and I want to do a bit to save it.  I do spend a lot of time trying to fit all the instructions on as few pages as possible.  

The most interesting result of my research was the number of designers who hadn't even thought about that side of things as they (like me) mostly work digitally.  I haven't printed off any of my own patterns for many, many years.  Several designers were very surprised to learn that people actually do print but I have quite a lot of friends who like to work from paper just like they also prefer a paper book.

One or two said that they put in a lot of instructions on how to make the pattern too.  Now this is fine for somebody who is just starting on their journey in our craft but for old timers then it's so annoying.  I had a pattern shown to me not long ago and because of the amount of 'help' that was given the actual pattern itself was lost and I honestly couldn't follow it.  It was also in two languages as well.  A great effort on the part of the designer but REALLY confusing to read and follow.  I gave up!!!

Personally I think a pattern of a small coaster/doily size should be at the very most two or three pages long and just stick to giving the instructions to work the design.  I don't see the point of so many pictures or explanations let alone a 'front page' and fancy large fonts.  If you come across something  you don't understand then just ask Mr Google or the designer for help.  Also coloured backgrounds (particularly black) are a real ‘no, no’.

Just my opinion - what do you think?

Difference between a mock ring & SCMR?

This question is bothering me now.  Over the years the terminology seems to change for tatting abbreviations.  Like the ‘ring on chain (ROCh)’ has now become a TOR (thrown off ring) which I find confusing as I always thought a TOR was a ring thrown off a ring. 

Today I want to discuss the SCMR v MR.  Now this is a technique that the Houtz brothers revived in their book ‘Tatting the GR-8 Self-Closing Mock Ring’ which was published in 1999 although it had been around long before that.  

Now my question at this point in time is what IS the difference between a SCMR and a MR (mock ring)?  OR is there a difference?  Can somebody explain as I’d always ‘assumed’ that a SCMR was a ring thrown off a chain and then joined back again at the start of the chain and that a mock ring was a pretend ‘ring’ like this.

Can some expert ‘out there’ please please explain the difference as I was trying out a new pattern for somebody and the start was a ‘self closing mock ring’ and, of course, I set off but couldn’t see how the ‘ring’ was a thrown off the chain as it didn’t return to the place I’d left at the start either.  So to me that would be simply a mock ring.  I know that people will tell me that a mock ring is a self closing mock ring and vice versa but I personally think there should be a difference.  I know that this technique can be made several ways and one way is something that I’d never considered until discussing this with Judith Connors - that is by using an swirl join or, as it’s sometimes called, an alligator join.  Judith never fails to wake up my brain.  She pointed me to Rhoda Auld’s method on pages 56 & 57 which is really interesting and also to Elgiva Nicholls book too although I must admit I haven’t had time to look at that yet.

It would certainly help a certain OG who is brain challenged to have a positive definition of the differences and then I can take off the technique page on my site which isn’t needed.