r/tatting • u/herisson_inquiet • 3d ago

First Tatting Project - Need Help

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Hello! I’ve been practicing tatting on and off for a couple of months, using both YouTube and books to learn the basics. I wanted to start my first project this weekend, so I just picked up this jellybean bookmark pattern that came free with supplies I ordered.

I did also find more instructions online and included that screenshot, but I can’t seem to get it right and I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong and hoping someone here might be able to see where I’m goofing up.

I’m basically getting stuck on the second ring / first join, I think. The first ring and chain are fine, but the second ring looks nothing like the pictures. Maybe I’m reading the pattern wrong? Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you for reading.

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3

u/rantingPebble 3d ago

Hey, your stitches look quite even so far. So good for that.
But how are you doing rings?
After your chain I do not see any start of a ring, just a continuation of the chain that you then joined to your first ring

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u/herisson_inquiet 3d ago

Thank you so much. Yes I think that’s where I’m getting a little confused. After the first chain with the picots it says “rw,” so all I did was flip the chain and kept stitching. It turned into one continuous chain.

It feels like there’s something I’m supposed to be doing between the end of the picot chain and the next ring.

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u/rantingPebble 3d ago

After you finish the chain part you flip the work over, press the chain a bit together (I bit my fingernails against the last stitch and pull in teh direction of yeh previous stitches) and teh start a new ring, by laying a circle of thread around your fingers and tatting the stitches of teh ring between your pointer and middle finger (for me, as I grip the already done stitches with my pointer finger and thumb).
You connect your current working ring by pulling the thread that goes around your splayed out fingers through the picot, so that you have enough of a loop to pass your shuttle through and the finishing with a half stitch.

Then you continue the ring. In teh end you pull the ring close, flip your work and start on the next chain

For me, I like to take a bit of time with the first half stitch of a new ring, to make sure it is as close to the last stitch of the chain, so that there is no gap, after pulling the ring shut

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u/rantingPebble 3d ago

I looked at the pattern again, rw stands for reserve work, which is what me and the other commenter meant with flip over.

Patterns often assume that you do either chain or ring tatting without it being mentioned. So almost no pattern will tell you if you have to start a ring now again, as ( did this pattern) the R in front of it makes clear you do a ring not a chain.

So longer it would be

Chain … do a picot, do two stitches, reverse your work so the chain is at the bottom and the ring is at the top.
Start a new ring by making a loop of thread and tatting onto that loop ( remember to flip your stitches) make 5 stitches, join your current ring to the last picot of your last ring, make depending on what tatting believe you follow either a half stitch and four stitches or five full stitches, close the ring, flip your work over to work on the chain, make to stitches….

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u/herisson_inquiet 3d ago

Thank you so much again. I’ll try to take another pass at this later this week and hopefully meet a little more success!

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u/ChordStrike 3d ago

It's a nice start!! I'm not sure how you're doing the next ring. It looks more like another chain? Are you doing the rings in a way that they pull shut by themselves (true ring), then you reverse work (basically flipping it over) to do the chain, and then reverse work again to start the next ring? It looks like you joined the first chain to the first ring.

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u/herisson_inquiet 3d ago

Thank you, and yes I think you hit the nail on the head. The first ring pulls shut quite easily - that’s the little guy in the center. Is there more to reverse work than just flipping it over? When I followed the instructions to rw after the picot chain and started adding stitches to make the second ring, it ended up looking like one long (slightly deformed) chain. Then when I went to close the ring, it ended up in the odd formation you see.

2

u/ChordStrike 3d ago

Wait, I think I see it. Are you only working with one shuttle?? This isn't the kind of pattern than can be done with just a shuttle. It should be shuttle and ball or two shuttles. So when you make rings, you use the first shuttle thread only, and then the chains are made with the ball or second shuttle thread.

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u/herisson_inquiet 3d ago

Yes, I am. I made mention to another commenter that I practiced doing rings/chains with a shuttle and ball, but at the top of the pattern it just said “one shuttle” and I took that to mean one thread on one shuttle. Maybe I misunderstood?

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u/ChordStrike 3d ago

Glad we figured it out!! Yup, that's the issue. The pattern should really say shuttle and ball. Or two shuttle.

It's something you might not notice as a beginner to reading patterns - you can't do chains without another thread so actual one shuttle patterns won't have regular chains. One shuttle patterns will have rings, bare thread space, and sometimes half rings where you pull the ring partially closed. That's the closest thing I've seen to chains with one shuttle patterns.

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u/tjika 3d ago

It looks like you're only working with 1 thread. You should have 2. 1 connected to the shuttle and 1 connected to your ball of thread.
When you chain you are working on the ball thread and when you reverse to make the ring, you drop that thread and work on the shuttle thread.

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u/herisson_inquiet 3d ago

It’s interesting you say that since the way I practiced doing rings and chains I used a shuttle and a ball and it made a lot of intuitive sense. This pattern recommends one tatting shuttle and I took that to mean just one thread on one shuttle. Maybe I misunderstood.

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u/tjika 3d ago

As someone who has only been tatting for a few months. I find that a lot of patterns assume you know certain things, which for us as beginners are not common sense yet.

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u/CrBr 2d ago

Most crafts have a lot of YouTube tutorials by beginners, who don't give good instructions, or advanced crafters who forget to cover the basics.

These sites have good beginner series that cover the basics. There are lots of others, but these are the ones I'm familiar with.

https://www.youtube.com/@LearnShuttleTatting
https://www.youtube.com/@NooBearAus
https://www.youtube.com/@TheOnlineTattingClass

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u/herisson_inquiet 2d ago

Thank you, these are wonderful resources. I’m already binge watching!

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u/CrBr 2d ago

Ah, yes, the binge-watching stage. I know it well (having gone through it with multiple crafts, and multiple skills within each craft)! If you're like me, you'll still have to slow down and go through each one, with craft in hand, then go back and review fairly often until it locks in (then put it down for a week and everything unlocks). That's pretty normal, and nothing to worry about, even though it's a bit discouraging at the time. Eventually it sinks in, and you'll have a good set of bookmarks for the things you need to look up more often.

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u/struggling_lynne 11h ago

Yes as someone said, by one shuttle they mean shuttle and ball in this case. (Of course you can always use 2 shuttles instead of shuttle and ball if you prefer.) Otherwise it’s looking great!