Blossom the Whale

A new addition to the Adventurous Aquarium series of patterns, Blossom the Whale is named after the tiny flowers in the ground. 

Size 11.5cm    28 Pairs approx. + 2 pairs perle 8.  Thread DMC Broder Machine 30 (27-30wpc)  Techniques - Blossom ground,  Half stitch, cloth stitch trails, sewing bars. attach bead for eye.   Sew flipper on right side at end.  

The Blossom ground can be made using the Honiton, or Bedfordshire techniques with a 4 or 5 pin crossing. A simpler version is to make two picots on the plait before making a windmill crossing and make another two picots after the crossing on the same plait. 

Start working in both directions with the coloured Perle pairs used as extra passives.  These can be replaced with standard threads.  The crossings at the plaits could be used to add sequins if they have a decent center space for the extra thread.  The blossom ground is started first with some of the plaits being carried through the trail and used for the curves of the tummy. 

I also experimented with the same pattern by using half stitch instead of the blossom ground, and cloth stitch and twist for the tummy and tail.  Be adventurous, let me see what you make with my patterns by posting them on my Lesley's Lace Facebook page.  

Ripple Fish - Pointed Corner Technique

 Ripple Fish 

Another addition to the Adventurous Aquarium set of free patterns available on this blog, my Lesley's Lace facebook page and with a few technique videos on my YouTube channel.  The Ripple Fish uses an Idrija style corner which gives a nice strong point.  

This pattern uses one pointed corner technique on every turn.   The pointed, or acute angle corner uses two sewings and four fixing stitches (sometimes called turning stitches in some laces). A fixing stitch is shown on a pattern as a circle around a join.  A sewing is shown as a pointed thread linking to a previous thread.   The sewings use temporary pins which are not replaced after the sewing.  To make a sewing, draw the thread of one bobbin through the temporary hole using a crochet hook or similar. Pass the second bobbin through the loop of the first bobbin and draw through and snuggle up to the trail. This is shown in the YouTube video of making the Pointed Corner.   https://youtu.be/ZimQzkBlMLI

Many corners suffer with the passives pulling away from the top pin, this version uses fixing, sometimes called turning stitches at the point which fills the space and stops the threads pulling away from the pin.   If the passives feature specific colours along the trails, they will get mixed up in this technique, so, decide if you want that to be a design choice, or double up the twist in a fixing stitch to keep the passive colours in order as you work the corner.  

The open spaces in this fish can be filled with a ground of your own choice after the fish is completed.  I chose to leave them open to echo ripples of sunlight coming through the water on the fish scales. 

Download - .pdf of the pattern from the Files tab on my Lesley's Lace facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/groups/907516516997481/

EDIT I have now added my previously gifted Seaweed patterns following requests for the background green seaweed!