In late 2020 (I’m not sure of the exact dates) IOLI (International Organizaiton of Lacemakers, Inc.) issued a challenge to show projects inspired by one ‘stash’. At first we were to state what our proposed lacemaking project would be and how it was inspired by our own stash of materials or other inspiration. I became inspired to contribute to this challenge after I had just learned that the 2021 IOLI Convention that I was supposed to teach at was cancelled. Up to that point I had been working on my latest (non-tatting) book on Teneriffe/Sol Lace, one of the two classes I was supposed to teach. When I learned that my 2021 deadline had been postponed to 2023, I was deeply ‘bummed-out’ for at least a day, wondering what I was going to do with my time with that deadline gone. Then I saw the call for the IOLI Stash Challenge and thought of a bigger tatting project that I had put on the back burner for my latest tatting book I was writing (Greek Key Designs in Split Ring Tatting). My ‘stash-inspiration’ was the Manuela thread collection that I had stashed away in my studio. Manuela thread hasn’t been available for at least 10 years. I had several balls of both solid colors and some exquisite variegated combinations. I did a test sampler and found that the black thread I had would work well (size-wise) with my favorite variegated color of the same manufacturer. (Note: not all thread colors will tat up well with my split ring designs, even within the same manufacturer. It seems that the dark colors are notoriously thicker–probably due to the process by which the thread was dyed)
So for several weeks, I was ‘as happy as a pig in slop’, happily tatting away on my project. The final product/piece is what I call Ultimate Meander 1 . Ultimate Meander 1 is one of two of the biggest designs I have created while studying, designing and tatting models for the Greek Key Designs in Split Ring Tatting book that I am currently working on. (I have Ultimate Meander 2 designed, but not yet tatted). This book will be number 10 in my ‘Fun with Split Ring Tatting’ series of books.
Ultimate Meander 1 is comprised of 11 different motifs of 10 rings wide. Each motif is completely different, no two alike (I worked long and hard to achieve this effect).
The primary color of the ‘meander’ is black and is a continuous, unbroken line of split rings. The ‘shore’ components are the multicolored rings.
The finished size (worked in Size 20 Manuela cordonnet thread) is 2.2 inches high by 27.4 inches long.
Ultimate Meander 1 was tatted in one ‘round’ using Padded Split Ring Tatting Technique, a technique that the author will introduce and teach in the book when it is published. This piece, like all the others in the book, was worked using 3 tatting shuttles–two shuttles for the primary color (black) and one shuttle for the secondary (multi-colored) thread.
Another name for Greek Key design style is ‘Meander’. This takes its name from the Meandre River in southwest Turkey. I have a personal connection with the Meandre River and Valley when I travelled through it on a trip in November 2019 (yes! While Turkey was at war with it’s neighbor, Syria). It is in the Meandre River Valley that fine Turkish cotton is grown that makes up several of the thread brands that we know and use. I passed the Altin Basak thread factory and got quite excited, much to the perplexion of my travelling companions.
If you look at aerial views of any river, you will see that they seem to be meandering—winding, twisting, zigzagging, snaking or convoluting–through the terrain they are associated with. It is this meandering mechanism that is seen in Ultimate Meander 1 and other Greek Key Designs in Split Ring Tatting technique (as seen below). If you discern which is the primary, meandering color of adjoining split rings you will see that they are continuous. In both of the two illustrations above, the primary colors are both blue, analogous to the blue waters of a river winding/meandering through an area on its way to the ocean.
