I recently started this carousel as a all-year project. Who knows if may be will take more than a year. *lol* I got the book last year when Riet Smeulder came to Palmetto and because I couldn't go Lorena mailed to me. I got other books from Ineke and in the past I have bought some others. I think I have like 8 of the 12+ books. Her designs are amazing! Nothing traditional and she does a lot of 3D tatting which is what I like the most. I got the Chess book, a Village book, I think I have like 2 of the Xmas books, 2 of The Seasons, this Carousel and the Toys book. I'll try to complete the collection this year.
Anyway, because I'm not sure that I'll make the complete carousel, may be the figures only, I started with one of the 4 horses that the carousel has. There are 4 horses, 2 swans and 2 gondolas (2 styles). Then you have the carousel that is COMPLETELY tatted. All is made with thread #80 which is similar to sewing thread (for those of you that are not familiar with threads sizes). The final work is pretty big although the book doesn't give you dimensions. I'm short of colors of thread #80 and I can't buy for now, so I'm using the most common size I've got, #10 thread. That's the size of the crochet thread and it's 10 times thicker than #80 or the sewing thread.
I already did half of a horse. Each horse is made with 2 parts that are joined together in some places, giving the horse a 3D appearance. On the center of the body will be the saddle which is another part that will be joined as it's worked. For the eye I used a swaroski crystal is a pretty smoky blue color. The horse as it is now measures around 8 inches long and 4 inches tall. If all the pieces are like this big at the end the carousel base will need to be like 40 inches diameter, at least, to accommodate all the pieces. Goodness! It's going to be huge!!! So that's why I'm thinking in making only a horse first and buy the carousel musical motor and have a pretty figurine.
This is the cover of the book. The publishing date is 2008 and the author is Ineke Kuiperij from The Netherlands. I'm not sure how to optain it another way than ordering it from Riet when she comes to Palmetto Tatting Day. I will post the information when it becomes available for this year.