All single-shuttle patterns, except those that pass the thread behind, can be made into shuttle-and-ball patterns by covering the bare threads with appropriate numbers of chain stitches. By carrying the thread in a loop around the ring instead of behind it, even the pass-behind patterns can be made to inspire shuttle-and-ball patterns.
If you look at the medallions and edgings you have made, you can see how many doubles each bare thread would require, and imagine them made with chains. Some of them will inspire you, and some of them won't.
When we were studying single-shuttle patterns, the next step after putting rings into the outer circle was to join the rings of the outer circle together.
One approach to making the outer circle of rings touch each other was to make the inner rings very small, so that the outer rings could be much larger than the inner rings without becoming unworkably huge. Another approach, which becomes practicable now that chains have replaced bare threads, is to make all the rings the same size, and use more rings in the outer circle than in the inner circle.
We begin as for the simple scroll medallion of Exercise Eight:
R: 4-4---4-4
C: 4-4
Swap threads and reverse work
R: 4+4-4-4
R: 4+4--4-4
R: 4+4--4-4
R: 4+4-4-4
The first ring joins to the picot on the just-completed chain, and each subsequent ring joins to the last picot of the previous ring. This creates a four-leaf clover, which I shall call a quatrefoil.
Swap threads and reverse work.
C: 4+4 RW
The chain is joined to the last picot of the last ring of the quatrefoil.
We may summarize the next repeat as:
R: 4+4+4-4 RW (part of the inverted rosette in the center)
C: 4-4 swap reverse
R: 4+4+4-4 (join to the chain, then to the previous quatrefoil)
R: 4+4--4-4
R: 4+4--4-4
R: 4+4-4-4 swap reverse
C: 4+4 RW
This completes two-sixths of the medallion, so repeat four more times. On the last repeat, join the last picot of the last inner-circle ring to the first picot of the first ring. Join the middle of the last ring of the last quatrefoil to the middle picot of the first ring of the first quatrefoil.
Does anything look familiar about this medallion? Think back to the classic daisy, when I asked you to arrange seven pennies to see how a daisy could be made of seven round rings. Here we have seven rosettes arranged in the same manner. The two inner petals of each of the six outer rosettes have been replaced by two short chains: you can see how each chain represents half a ring. The star shape created by the arcs of chain makes the medallion more interesting (as well as easier to create) than a medallion made by joining seven rosettes together. This star shape is emphasized if you have used a ball thread of a different color than the shuttle thread, so that the central rosette and the six quatrefoils are one color, and the six-pointed star marked out by the twelve chains is a different color.
Because of this construction, I refer to this medallion as the "rosette of rosettes" even though there isn't one true rosette in it -- the inner rosette is inverted, and the outer rosettes are incomplete.
For a fractal-ish doily, you could make six more medallions, joining each one to the central medallion and to the previous medallion. And if you don't mind working the same simple pattern forty-nine times, you could make six more doilies, joining them to the first doily and to each other to make a centerpiece.
But something more interesting to do with this medallion is to see how many ways there are to make the same design, which brings us to the next lesson:
On to Exercise Ten:
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