were they hieroglyphs ?

free vintage edging pattern in modern notation  
this post is in a lighter vein, though it involved serious work

 Hieroglyphic, err, Arsenic and Old Lace

 dedicated to the wonderful Online Tatting Class

                                            A mummy wrapped in old lace,

                                            I sought to make new and replace

                                            with minimal invasion –

                                            a diagram and notation.

                                            There arose a cry in class

                                            ‘how to tat this is one pass?’

                                            To a new diagram it led,

                                            but wasn’t clearly read.

                                            The new sequence highlighted,

                                            Why was not it sighted ?

                                            Was there a real glitch

                                            or words were like hieroglyphs ?

                                            Such tricks plays our brain

                                            This is arsenic, pain not again !

                                            The new mummy they turned over

                                            To decipher the top as the lower !

                                                                           -- muskaan, May 31, 2017

I promise, je promets, lo prometto – the last and final revision of this edging. And I do apologise for putting my dear readers through this yet again - March, April, and now May, oops - the mummy rises again !

This is an image from the original Georgia sent me, for working out the sequence and diagramming. Here all 5 rows were tatted separately, with tie and cut after each. 

During my first revisit of the tatted edging from Coats and Clark (Book 121, Pattern 295), without specific guidelines, I didn’t want to change anything, except climbing out of rows for a continuous tat. Hence rows I to IV were tatted as one continuous unit. Then tie and cut. And row V was worked separately.

Some tatters wondered how to make all 5 rows in one go. Hence I included this in a revised diagram (below), to be read in conjunction with the original modern notation, and all links and information were provided in that single page (shown encircled)

Yet confusion persisted. Eyes went straight for the diagram, skipping the written matter which was highlighted through colour coding, or within boxes and the tatting sequence was the first thing on the page ! They were Not hieroglyphs, were they ?! 

I recently finished reading The Brain by David Eagleman and it is an 'eye'-opener to see how our brain takes over all our perceptions, sensations, knowledge, learning, comprehension, actions and reactions.

Anyway, they solved it by turning the page upside down ;-D (Ingenious lot here, though momentarily blinded by the diagram perhaps, ;-P !)

Why ? Because then Row I became oriented correctly – the way we would tat it. Another TWoT lesson for diagrammers.

All this could’ve have easily avoided if I hadn’t tried to avoid some extra work (yeah, yeah, a stitch in time …. and all that jazz ;-P) I should’ve re-oriented the pattern (in pic below) for the revised diagram, but thought it’d be too much work. It is easy enough to flip a diagram in Inkscape; turns out it is just as easy to flip the numbers – individually or as a group !!! I did have to reposition, but it was all fairly quick work. Another happy lesson learned too late :-)

So I give you yet again, the re-revised reoriented and this time stand-alone pattern for the edging. download reoriented diagram-only pdf here. 

Since I was going through it all again, and I didn't want to show you the same old pic, I tatted another sampler, this time in black size 50. 

And I also made another pdf this time with the pattern in written notation too. 
download Complete reoriented pattern pdf with diagram and text here

I know you must be bored, but hey, “I’m picky” ;-P And hopefully no hieroglyphic this time!
I will be striking out all previous pdfs to avoid confusion in future.

Thank you Georgia and the Online Tatting Class

for new perspectives, 
and for making me work harder to improve J

keep tatting till posterity J