Pattern Disaster :(

Wow, Sandra. Forgive me, but I had forgot that your hubby is a stroke victim. I know your days are quite busy. Please ignore what I said above about getting away by yourself for tatting. Being with him, even if it interferes with tatting, is all important right now. But maybe you could ask your friend to come to you once in a while. If you were only 45 minutes away from me, I'd be there in a shot! And I'd bring lunch.

Maybe some day, when I'm in the mood, but I think it would be awkward. Anyway, I do get away to tat! I have fibromyalgia and can only sleep a couple of hours at a time, and many nights, adrenaline hits around 11 and I'm more awake then ever. I've been known to tat thru the am hours, and that's basically how I get anything done. I should be washing dishes right now, but I have him settled and I am stealing some time tatting, while we are cozy in the TV room. I have, fortunately, always been a home body and also one that waited on her husband hand & foot, by choice. So now, there are a few more things I do for him, that I wasn't already doing. He is so sweet that we have a good time together and he is easy to care for.

I'm working on the Double O Cross right now, and just had to pick out half a ring because I should have connected to a picot, instead of make one, but the pets were dancing around to be fed, and I lost concentration... I hesitate to bring this up.... but it seems I have a method for picking out closed rings, that works... did I create something new, or do other do this? Hey, look at the pic of my sweetie, he was sitting by the fire, by our Christmas tree, and I had just read some from his fav book. Although he can't do much for himself, we have a good life and laugh everyday, we stay up late watching tv, sleep late, nap whenever we want, and just appreciate the second chance we have to still be together. I fear I may be rattling back & forth, as I just fed 3 pets, and gave one her insulin injection, now time to get hubby's meds, and brush his teeth-floss, and then - MORE TATTING!

in reply to Judy's post:

Judy, yes I said that totatlly backward, I would actually be thrilled if the hour was dropping backward - I've edited my post! I think that site still exist free-tatting.com and YES it is a bear, I like to never figured out the bracelet, and then made 2, I liked it so much. But wow, stitch numbers and that's it!

Ah, picking out rings.. I unthread the needle and use it to loosen up everything, and keep spreading stitches until I can see the core, and pull it out. I find that if you dampen very slightly the untatted wrinkled thread, it will straighten out. Just leave it a minute to dry out before resuming... or I find it will stretch.

in reply to Judy's post:

Oh, I'm picking out shuttle tatted rings! Although I will say that I started picking out rings, when I saw there wasn't much left on the shuttle, I'd take it off and be able to untat easily. But then, I found a way to untat, with the shuttle still on, it works well, and not a lot of pulling. I'm trying to perfect my way, and maybe make a video to show how I'm doing it.

in reply to cozyhomelife's post:

Sandra, that would be really nice of you to make a video of how you untat (retrotat) a ring. This is one thing that frustrates many a new tatter. Even though there are videos out there for this, one more is always welcome. What works for one tatter may not fly for another, so the more options we have, the better.
And BTW, that's a perfectly sweet photo of your hubby. Thank you for posting it.

in reply to Lynn's post:

when you say there are videos out there for that, do you mean like open the ring and untat? That's what I'm trying to find out, because the way I do it, you don't open the ring! I've always heard you had to open a ring to get out the stitches, or cut it off, so was very surprised when I blundered onto a way to do it, without opening, and no thread stretching.

in reply to cozyhomelife's post:

Yes, there are ways to open a closed ring. The method I like is this one, by Mark Myers:
http://www.tat-man.net/tatterville/howtotat/OpenClosedRing.html

Since I learned it, I'm not afraid of reopening closed rings any more!

But you can unpick a ring without opening it, and without cutting the thread? Wow, I look forward to seeing how you do it!

Yea, I was opening them, the way I saw Mariliee Rockley do in a video, but then I found out I could do this - and it really comes in handy, Like last night when I was using 40 thread and the ring was small, only 6-6. Too small for me to want to pull on. But I got all the stitches out, without opening.

in reply to muskaan's post:

I kept looking at my picture of the finished cross today, and I finally noticed a clue. The chains in the body, DO meet neatly. Only the chains that follow the big end rings, are sloppy and mis-matched. So, using that clue, I decided to start another, to see if I could find out what went wrong there. The first thing that happened was after I made the big end ring with 5 picots, it said to rw, and that makes the chain point in the wrong direction. Turning it another way, meant the wrong thread was on top, like for making rings, so I switched them. But have stopped there, trying to discover if I'm missing the obvious, that is not mentioned, and this is where my chains look so lopsided at the join. They do look somewhat better with the thread swith, but I keep looking at the pattern where they are perfect. I also notice that my chains seem to want to wad up, like there are too many stitches. But that doesn't matter, it is the chain that doesn't follow along after the reverse, but goes in the wrong direction that I'm still puzzling over.

in reply to cozyhomelife's post:

My had is a bit foggy due to fever and congestion, so I might have to come back and review the whole scenario.
However, for starters , when I went to see your cross, here's one suggestion : to keep it looking even on both sides, male a lock join Both times - on the way 'up' and also on the way 'down', in the same ring picot.
As to your question about switching shuttles. I need to think clearly in order not to confuse us all ;-P
I like your cross ! Nice job :-)

in reply to cozyhomelife's post:

I went and looked at your project. I'm also puzzled by Barbara Foster's instructions to rw after making the end ring. I consider these thrown rings, and for thrown rings you switch shuttle, but don't reverse.

@muskaan's suggestion is good. If I were doing it, I would lock join into the picot both before and after making the thrown ring.

(In case you have trouble with lock joins, they used to be a terrible bugbear for me, too. I learned a few tricks for handling them: (1) snug up the chain as much as possible before pulling the thread to lock the join, (2) pull the thread straight up, (3) make the next stitch as close as possible right next to the join.)

in reply to GraceT's post:

I do a lock join well, but it is not the join throwing off the ends. It is something about changing directions. I did do the shoe lace trick last night, and it did make it look a lot better. The pattern actually calls for shuttle & ball, so there was not another shuttle to tat with. I don't think it is a thrown ring, because it comes off the previous ring, just like all the rest, the only difference is, once shut, you have to change directions with the next chain, on the other side of the rings - and it all doesn't land up right, without making adjustments that are not mentioned. Hence where I, correctly or not, did the shoe lace trick. Because there is no mention of anything in the pattern, I can't help but wonder if the reason this is not as clear as it should have been, is because the pattern is trying to cater to both needle and shuttle, and the things she would say to the shuttle would be confusing to the needle. I have most of it under control on this second one I'm doing, but stopped last night at the place where you make your center "square" around the inside. There is no real way for me to be sure that I get these all the same size and try to make a square, which would be a loose chain. I made one and fiddle to try to put in position and find that it is too big and baggy. So went to sleep to think on it. I think I will go ahead and make all my 4 inside chains tight as the others, in order to make sure they are all more alike in size. Now I must go back to take that one chain out, which also needs a ring gone (untatting without opening the ring). So the next time my brain and my slate clears, I'll be doing that. Too bad, as I could have finished last night, if I'd just went ahead with the pull the chains into arches, instead of trying to make the inner square. I'm making it green for St Patrick's Day.

in reply to muskaan's post:

So sorry to hear you are under the weather, it is a miserable way to feel.

in reply to cozyhomelife's post:

Ah, so according to the instructions the outer rings are not thrown rings! But, it was the direction of the chains that made me think they were, even though they don't sit on a continuous curve. You might want to try it that way...

There's a pretty snowflake, Tat a Winter Star, that features what I'm calling thrown rings: http://www.craftree.com/patterns/6505

See the little men in the valleys between the points? They're made up of three rings below the chain and two above. The rings above are what I am calling thrown rings.

But perhaps all this is clear as mud?

@cozyhomelife, in response to your earlier dilemma . You are absolutely right. There should Not be any RW in shuttle tatting after the ring at tips. We need to continue with chains after the end ring, down the other side.
I can't say whether this was a deliberate vagueness or an inadvertent mistake in writing the pattern. You can be proud, though, of having figured it out yourself, based on your personal experience :-)

I don't see the need for a SLT or 2nd shuttle either. The entire cross can be tatted with one shuttle and ball. And even it you use 2 colours, all rings should be one colour & chains the other colour.
There are no "true" thrown rings, though they may appear to be so at first glance.

@GraceT, that is a beautiful snowflake !

The only thing I'm sure of, is that after I made the end large ring with 5 picots, it said reverse, and I did, and tatted half a chain and then went, "wait a minute.... this chain is going to the end point of the cross, not toward the middle!" I knew there was a problem with the instructions at that point... or I was drunk.... but I don't drink.... hmmmmm.....or my brain was on the blink.... or.... aliens... pod people.... gas lighting... spells thrown by cats... dogs & cats living together like man & wife, apocalypse zombies... I'm sure all those things are in the pattern, at least they were last night, while I was reading it....

Wow. I was only gone two days. Y'all have been really busy.

Yes, @cozyhomelife, I was talking about opening rings. If you have a way to do it without opening them, you simply must let us in on the secret! And Kudos for figuring out the the RW problem. I agree with @muskaan. You should be proud of yourself for figuring that out.

in reply to muskaan's post:

On my green cross, I have made picots so small I could almost not find them to put the tiniest crochet hook thru. I actually had the bottom and left large end rings come out nice, but the top one went lop-sided again. So, I took it out to go back there where it happened and see what it was exactly that was going on. Seems that the closing shuttle thread, is way up in the air and when you make the chain, it causes the chain on the right side to be too high. So I followed what you said and joined it and THEN started the chain and it is in the right spot. I almost finished, but my eyes crossed at 6:30am and I went to bed. Hope to finish today.

in reply to Lynn's post:

I opened 3 rings last night, without opening them. Oh once you get several stitches out, you can go ahead and open them, because you will need an open loop to tat them again anyway. I am having great luck with the sharp pic on my small clover.

in reply to cozyhomelife's post:

happy for you, Sandra !!!

As for unraveling a ring - I often have to remove the last few stitches with a crochet hook, unraveling piecemeal. But then once it gets easy to pull open, I prefer to open it up and then undo the stitches.
Eager to see what you are up to ;-D

in reply to muskaan's post:

Finished my second cross - green for St Patrick's Day! It is definitely an improvement, but still lots of room for more improvement! Very surprised to have it still look like a beginner did it, but at least feel good about the improvements I did manage.

in reply to cozyhomelife's post:

That's great! This pattern is no longer a disaster!