#18 in 25 Motif Challenge

Plate V, figure 25

I started on the motif last night. It's a simple 4 ring motif. 6-6-6-6 with joins at the side picots. At first, I miscounted the picots and had a 6-6-6 ring but then I saw there was no way to join at the corners for the 9 square center so I carefully counted again and found my mistake. I'd already made 2 rings. I didn't want to cut them off and have a knot and ends to deal with because I planned on split rings later so I de-tatted and started over. Not really much of a bother.

So then I went from one little motif to another and was not pleased with how the rings bunched up. I kept looking at the picture over and over...what was I doing wrong? And what was that teensy little center there? Was that the stitching from embroidering it on the net?

And then a little light went on. I remembered seeing something about 10 stitches but nothing in the ring was the equivelant of 10 stitches so back to carefully reading the pattern I went! Oh my! After the 4 rings are tatted, you tat a tiny ring of 10 stitches. This folds down on the center. That's what that little nubbin' in the center is!

So here is the real motif!

To get the tiny ring on the topside so all the stitches looked the same, I unwound the shuttle, pulled the thread up through the center, tatted the ring and then pulled the thread back down again. Then I caught a stitch in the tiny ring at the top with my fine crochet hook and brought that thread up through it and then down again, tying to the other thread in the back.

The only way to get that center effect is to tat each motif separately. You can't climb out with a split ring. I suppose technically you could, by tatting the tiny rings after all the motifs are done but I can see that tatting them separately won't result in the bunched up rings like the first incorrect sample.

Now to begin with, I have no idea how to embroider net. I'm not even sure what net is. The only "net" I know of is the nylon variety used to make scrubbies for the kitchen and bathroom or scratchy crinoline slips to make the skirt poof out. Or the NET, the internet variety. When I thought I could zip through the 9 center motifs and the outside 24 motifs by using split rings, I was going to try putting it on a linen piece as the center insert and outer edging. Now that I know I'm going to have to tat 33 individual motifs and hide the ends in every one of them, I'm just not willing to do that at the moment. Life is a little busy and with holidays soon coming up, my time can be better spent elsewhere, but I may use it as a long term side project.

There are 3 more motifs in this Plate V and I will do them. One other is also on net and we'll see how much tatting is involved in that before I commit to it on linen!