Trial Run

Drawing programs can be useful for trying out all kinds of ideas. I had plans to make a strip of lace for a bracelet or choker that I could use as a strap for a central piece of jewelry. Since I didn't have any flashes of inspiration I just started playing around with different ideas seeing how they would look and figuring out what would work best and what would be the easiest to tat.

I started with a basic little 4 ring bit. It was too small so I tried 4 of them which was better. Then I thought a small side ring might give some variation. It seemed kind of boring and it was going to be a pain working through all of the necessary split rings.
Then I thought maybe a square of cloverleaves but the chains on the inside made it a stinker to work in a continuous row. Since I wanted a strap like effect and not just a single motif, what I was striving for was the look of a motif but the continuous flow of an edging.

I took the already created cloverleaves and made a copy of them that I could keep going back to, to copy and paste. You can see it in the lower right.

Then I copied the clovers again and put the chains on the outside which was an improvement, but not quite what I needed so I rotated it.

The next version looked better but meant that I had to do a cloverleaf in the middle of working a split chain in order to work it continuously. It's possible, but awkward to work. Some designs are like that. They look good, but they're fussy to tat. Most people will refuse to work this kind of a design because it's just more trouble than it's worth. I usually find another way of doing it when I get this kind of a problem.

So I tried it again without the side clovers, which made it nothing more than a chain and clover edging. B-o-r-i-n-g. I added a little interest with some large ring/small ring combination, but it made the centre look bare and unconnected. I thought that a row of tiny split rings would help, but when it came to tatting the design it was already wide enough so I actually tatted something a little different from the diagram.

It would have taken 4 or 5 hours to tat the various samples just to see which looked good and which had the best "flow". Doing several trial pieces in the drawing program saved me hours of tatting time and resulted in a finished piece much faster.

When you use a drawing program, you don't have to have a specific purpose in mind. You can use it to just try out different ideas and see what they look like.