First exercise

The basic join and a simple edging


Using the same shuttle and thread that you have been using for tats, make a ring of four doubles, leave a half-inch for a picot, four more doubles, another half-inch picot, a third set of four doubles and a third half-inch picot, and end with four doubles.  (This is sixteen doubles divided by three picots into four sets of four.)

Between this ring and the next one, leave a space of thread equal to the width of the ring plus a quarter inch for the picot.  You can measure the thread by folding it up under the ring and bringing your first knot down to the end of the middle picot, which is the same length as the side picot.  The picot is going to stretch a bit, so leave a little slop in the length of your unworked thread.

Measuring a space of thread against a ring

The Two-thread Join:

Make four double stitches, then stretch the ring a bit to make sure you have thread enough and at the same time double-check that all the knots slip properly.  Draw the ring thread up through the last picot of the previous ring.  There may be a pick on the shuttle suitable for this job.  If not, use a pin, tatting pin, or a crochet hook.  (See "Tatting Pins" in the Encyclopedic Index.)

Pass the shuttle through the loop that you drew up through the picot.  Now tighten the loop the same way that you tighten a half-stitch, by pulling on the ring thread while keeping the shuttle thread taut.  You may find that sliding the stitches back and forth on the shuttle thread helps the loop to settle down.  Keep the shuttle thread taut to prevent it from participating in the knot that is forming.

The join represents the first half of a double stitch.  Make the second half, then make three more doubles, a picot, four doubles, a picot, and four doubles.  Draw up.  You have two identical rings sharing a picot.  It will be obvious which ring owns the picot, because I haven't told you everything about joining yet.  (The rest is in Exercise Four.)
The two-thread join
Make another ring just to be sure you know how to join.  You will see an edging developing.  Innumerable miles of this edging have been made, most of it with somewhat less-exaggerated picots.

If you nearly always think about something else while you are tatting, you may want to stop your development right here.  This edging differs from most other tatted edgings in that you don't have to know what you are decorating before you make it.  It can be eased around a corner, and you can cut it by snipping the thread and unraveling a ring.  You can close or splice it by sewing it to a hem in such fashion that the last picot of the last ring overlaps the first picot of the first ring.  You needn't carry anything except the shuttle itself, if it has a pick, and when you use up a shuttle of thread, you count that length as finished and start over, so that you don't accumulate huge pieces of work to carry around.

Now throw out those three rings; picots bigger than the rings themselves make an ugly decoration.  You've two ways to go.

You can rewind the shuttle with #20 or #30 thread, decide how large you want to make your rings, select a length and arrangement of picots, master the art of leaving the right space of thread, read "Of Right and Wrong" in the Fourth Exercise to find out how to keep your joins from showing, and set out to make your first fathom of edging.

Or, leave the fine thread on your shuttle for a bit and learn how to make things that don't call for quite so much patience.

On to Exercise Two:  trefoils and rosettes defined  »
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