Our exploration of this antique book of tatting patterns will involve a great deal of "thinking" ahead. The first of these three patterns will help us to improve our split ring technique and give us practice in finding our way through a split ring diagram. The next will help us learn to gauge our chains and keep them straight while letting us play a bit with color and texture, too. And the last is just for fun. It is an old-fashioned flower whose leaves and stems will aid us in learning how to encapsulate threads.

You can see that the tatter of yesterday had a whole lot of cutting and tying on this pattern. Each group of five rings would have been tatted, cut and tied. The ring section could be joined to the header as it is made or the header could be tatted last. Note: there is no stitch count given.

One repeat done with split rings which are noted in shaded blue.

You can continue tatting each point for quite a distance when you are using the split ring technique.

Here you work one color for the length desired without joining any of the rings.

When you add the second color you alternate joining to rings on opposing sides. Here is the order of the rings:

Now if you have lots of thread ends to use up, you may want to try three or more colors.

And this would be the order in which to proceed. Pull the work toward you when joining so that the new chain goes under the old and then over the next etc.

Rainbow Sherbet by Lily Morales Lily Morales was so inspired by this lattice pattern and its possibilities for color that she loaded up 12 shuttles (wound CTM) and away she went! The rings are R 5 - 5 - 5 - 5 and the chains are CH 25. Lovely work!

This flower was part of an edging and it appears that all the bits and pieces were tatted separately and joined as needed. Let's determine if we can tat this in one pass (or two if using colors.)

Take a look at the diagram. The flower head we could do the center ring first and use the tail to climb out leaving a mock picot and one tiny split ring. then we could continue to do one shuttle work across the top joining the rings to each other and to the picots of the center ring.

Since you climb out with only the one split ring this split ring must be tatted "second half first". Form the ring and tat the second half with the end BEFORE tatting the first half. Then tat the first ds of the first half of the split ring normally.

Tat the next three ds of the first half of the split ring but do not tighten the stitches:
Then slip the end through the stitches from the last ds through the second; tighten each stitch individually. Then close the ring with the shuttle and then pull the end through toward the base of the split ring. Trim the thread to about an inch and don't make the final cut (flush with stitches) until entire piece is finished.

Now we can start the stem at either end. I would do a padded center stem. As you approach the branch with leaves, use one shuttle and measure off an inch or so of bare shuttle thread. Then tat the trefoil. Hold the trefoil extended away from the stem and keep it taut while you wrap sufficient DS to reach the center stem again. Repeat on the other side.

	Any questions? You are welcome to email me. AKTATTER@aol.com Please also print part 2 of this week's lesson. Part 2 Tammy Rodgers' Carnation