The ring-and-chain edging that I called a "scroll" only simulates a scroll. Here is how to make the real thing:
Begin on a continuous thread, and put a paper clip in the loop at the beginning.
Work the chain on the wrong side:
C: 4-4--8+
Make a two-thread join to the loop at the beginning, then telescope the loop and continue the chain
* C: 4--4-4-4--4+4+
After making an ornamental picot, two link picots, and another ornamental picot, join into the side of the previous loop, then join into the first of the two link picots that you made after the previous crossing. Repeat from *.
If you want to try the scroll technique on something you can complete in a short time:
Begin with separate ball and shuttle threads and, working on the wrong side, make a chain with three ornamental picots separated by four doubles:
C: 4--4--4--4-
After the fourth group of four doubles, make a link picot, then work the part of the chain that corresponds to the ring in the scroll medallion:
C: 4-4---4-4+ (make middle picot large enough to join into five times)
Join, by a two thread join that does not interrupt the chain, into the first link picot, the one at the end of the first section of chain. Work another swag like the first:
* C: 4--4--4--4-
Then work another proxy-ring loop. Join first to the elongated picot on the first loop, then to the side of the previous loop. Last, join to the last picot on the swag:
C: 4+4+4-4+
Repeat from * until there are six loops and six swags. Join the last loop first to the first loop, then to the center, then to the previous loop. Instead of joining to the link-picot of the previous swag, cut the threads. Draw the beginning of the shuttle thread up through the picot and tie it to the end of the shuttle thread in a square knot. Tie the beginning of the ball thread to the end of the ball thread. Whip the ends to the work.
Try to make your scrolls look as though you laid a cord along your design and it stayed put without any coercion.
Scroll is best done in coarse thread so that the crossings can be clearly seen, but it also has its place in fine lace appliqué on net, to represent vines and tendrils.
Any pattern done in alternating rings and chains can inspire a scroll pattern, and will change markedly if worked entirely in this technique. When you work clovers, it will be necessary to work a stitch or two of chain between the loops to keep the crossings from piling up into a lump, and to bridge the bases of the rings. It will sometimes happen that the last ring of a clover becomes the first loop, to replace sharp folds with smooth curves.
Scroll patterns are the ultimate in expressing designs worked out on paper: the tatted chains simply trace out the path of the pen. You can even tat a signature, though the letters will have to be sewn down to hold their shapes. If a design is intended to be free-standing, you must be careful that the line touches or crosses itself at strategic intervals. Long picots can steady lines that merely pass near each other.
Another way of making two chains cross is to pass the shuttle thread on one side of the chain, and the ball thread on the other, so that the chain is gripped between two stitches. In complicated patterns there would be an unacceptable probability of having to pass the shuttle through a hole much smaller than a shuttle, but it works nicely when making branched structures such as the stems of flowers.
You can run into the same difficulty with the joining technique. If you want the crossings to lie in a particular order of overs and unders, you will have to do some advance thinking to avoid finding yourself faced with a choice between making the crossing on the wrong side or unwinding your ball and shuttle to pass them through a small opening.
On to Exercise Sixteen:
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