Pattern: Floral edging

Five-petal flowers connected by a ruffled chain

Today’s pattern is one I’ve been trying to get right for a while; I’m still not confident I’m there, but I’m happy enough to share it. It comes with not one but two new techniques, which I may be re-inventing but I’ve not seen on the tatting internet before. If such things scare you, be assured that they are pretty optional; I’ll include instructions to sub in more tried-and-true techniques.

New technique number one I am calling a reversed join, because that’s what it is. It is a picot-less joining technique, meaning you can join the ring (rings only, and only the way I make rings, unless you have spare needles) you’re currently making to any point on the established piece, without needing to plan ahead and put a picot there. I came up with it when doing a lot of design, when I wanted that flexibility, but another advantage is you can make much tighter joins than I know how to make with ordinary picot/joins, which is why I use it in this pattern.

Steps for the reversed join:

1. Omit the picot that the pattern wants you to join to, but keep track of where it would be. Use safety pins as markers if you like.
2. Just before starting the ring with the join in it, poke the needle through the knot where the picot would be and pull the thread partway through. This is similar to setting up for beaded picots, but instead of a bead you’re using the tatting you’ve done so far.
3. Make the first part of the ring, up to where it says to join, in the needle thread between the threaded-on join and the rest of the work.
4. Slide the join up to the knots on the needle.
5. Make a picot of whatever size you like with the join on it; for this pattern, just pull the thread tight.
6. Finish the ring as normal.

New technique number two I am calling a ruffle chain, and it is a successor of the spiral chains I’ve been talking about lately. It’s not essential to this pattern—replace with a spiral chain if the idea frightens you. I think they look neat, though, and will probably be using them more in future. The idea is that, if a normal chain has a fairly severe natural curve to it, and a spiral chain is straight, what if you make a chain that’s somewhere in between ds and spirals? Specifically, what if you spiraled part-way around and then came back? The ruffle chain is just that: make two or three or four single stitches of the same type in a row, then make the same number of single stitches of the other type to come back. Two-stitch ruffle chains (that’s two first-half single stitches, two second-half single stitches, two first-half, etc) and three-stitch ruffle chains have intermediate curvatures, and four-stitch ruffle chains are very nearly straight by nature. And, instead of a straight row of knot tops or a spiral staircase, the knot side of ruffle chains zigzags in what I find a pleasing way. Your mileage, of course, may vary. To put the curvature and knots in the right place, it helps to start and finish with fewer single stitches than your main repeat, so a four-stitch ruffle starts with two single stitches, etc.

Without further ado, the pattern:

1. Ring 4ds; if you don’t like the idea of reversed joins, ring 2ds, small picot, 2ds instead
2. Chain 4ds
3. Ring 3ds, large picot A (1/2″ or so; large enough to make four joins into), 3ds
4. Chain 6ds, join B of previous flower, 6ds
5. Ring 3ds, join A, 3ds
6. Chain 12ds
7. Ring 3ds, join A, 3ds
8. Chain 12ds
9. Ring 3ds, join A, 3ds
10. Chain 6ds, picot B, 6ds
11. Ring 3ds, join A, 3ds
12. Chain 4ds
13. Ring with reverse join: insert needle into the ring you made in step 1 between the second and third ds, pull through some thread; 2ds, slide join up to knots, pull working thread fairly tight and make 2ds with no picot. If you don’t like reverse joins, instead just ring 2ds, join to the ring made in step 1, 2ds.
14. Ruffle chain: 2 first-half single stitches; (4 second-half single stitches, 4 first-half single stitches) three times, 2 second-half single stitches. If you don’t like ruffle chains, feel free to either: spiral chain 32 or so single stitches, or shoelace trick, chain about 30ds, shoelace trick.