The difference between the sides of tatting isn't quite enough to notice, but a mis-match irritates the eye and causes the work to appear messy. You will notice a similar effect when the stitches of cross-stitch embroidery are not crossed consistently.
On the right side, there are as many purls as there are stitches. On the wrong side, you will see one less purl than you have stitches, and there will be a half-stitch at each end.
On the right side, the thread forming a picot rises behind one purl and returns behind the next purl. On the wrong side, a picot is a loose purl. (If the picot is in the middle of a double, instead of between two doubles, it will be the other way around.)
When the right side of the work is toward you, a ds is worked "plain, purl." When the wrong side of the work is toward you, a ds is "purl, plain."
When you work a ring on the wrong side, you must pass the shuttle through it before you finish drawing up the ring, so that the thread comes out where it would have if you had worked on the right side. If you don't, the shuttle thread crosses over the thread of the last plain and causes the bottom of the ring to wobble.
The loops for joining should always be drawn from the right side to the wrong side, in order to counterfeit the half-stitch that the join replaces.
To form a join on the right side, pull the thread down through the picot, put the shuttle through the loop, draw snug, and work a purl to complete the first ds after the join.
To form a join on the wrong side, pull the thread up through the picot, put the shuttle through it, draw snug, and work a plain to complete the ds. (I had you use the wrong-side join with your right- side rings in Exercise One, which is why I called it "backward.")
Pulling down is more difficult than pulling up, so try to plan your work so that most of the joins are worked when the wrong side is toward you.
The first time you attempt a pull-down join, use coarse thread and a large-but-not-floppy picot.
Note: people who know just enough to be dangerous sometimes conclude that it is wrong to show the wrong side of tatting. "Right" and "wrong" are only labels; when the work is nicely finished, either side is presentable, and fine work may show its right or wrong side indifferently. In coarse work, it is noticeable that the wrong side is slightly less-defined than the right side. In some designs, one prefers the smoother look of the wrong side; more often, one prefers the crisp look of the right side. In neither case is the preference so strong that one would hesitate to flip a soiled doily to the clean side when there isn't time to wash it.
Further note: The primary difference between the right side and the wrong side is the appearance of the picots; if extra half-stitches at ends are noticed at all, they will be taken for deliberate design elements. So if it bothers you to switch back and forth from purl-first to plain-first, make the picots on rings between stitches and the picots on chains in the middles of stitches -- or the other way around. If you make joins between stitches (see note under "joining" in Encyclopedic Index) these, too, should switch from between to in the middle. Which join goes with which picot is a matter of taste and what fits your design.
(If the above paragraph is confusing, forget about it until you start to design for publication.)
On to Exercise 4B: A Simple Wheel, Preliminary Exercise
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