As I was working on a fifth trial of a new design, I became curious to find out how big my scrap pile has become. After digging through my craft bins I came out with this:
Perhaps it's not that impressive, but I wonder what it will look like in another three years. I sorted through the tatting and separated it into sections, trying my best to remember where each one originated.
The largest pile is a group of design trials that ended up as completed patterns. It's not unusual for me to go through 4 or more versions of the same design to achieve the look that I want and to get the pattern to lay flat. I'm not sure if this encompasses all of my designs, as there could be more that I don't remember throwing away.
A much smaller pile is design ideas that never took bloom. These were abandoned rather quickly, when I decided that it just wasn't going to work out. For some reason, I have a particular problem with creating butterflies, and have yet to make a successful one.
Another small pile involves learning new techniques. These include woven picots, self closing mock rings, split rings, folded joins, and interlocking elements. I find that leftover thread on the shuttles comes in handy when trying out something new. There are a few that I can spot in this pile that might be worth looking into for future designs.
The last pile contains experimentations with book patterns, and a few of the Stawasz rosettes that I had to cut from my Monster Doily. Those rosettes took so long, I suppose I didn't want to part with them!
So that's it for my scrap pile. What do you do when you have bits of tatting or other crafts that don't quite make it as completed items? I'm going to keep adding to my scrap pile to see how big it gets in another few years.