treble no trouble

treble tatting (tds) motifs

I wondered why some of my trebles caused trouble here!

The problem reared it's head again but this time I hit treble 20 (reference to darts)!

Turns out I was rolling the core thread rather than 'transferring' the rolls on to the ball thread loop. How terrible and how silly – if only I had paid more attention to the video!

Once this puzzle was solved, everything went smoothly and happily.

In fact I stopped using a separate crochet hook – my shuttle hook sufficed. This is what a bit of practice can do ;-D

I made a mistake joining the 3rd ring in wrong space -- noticed only when the 4th ring needed to be linked.  Instead of cutting, I unwound the yellow core and pulled off the chain stitches. Imagine my immense surprise and pleasure when even the tds unravelled !!!
Pattern for this motif. 

TIP : For climbing out -- I reversed the order of work, making the lock join with 2nd shuttle first. Then performed the same with shuttle1 but before closing the loop I inserted/encapsulated the shuttle2 thread.

I got so engrossed watching an exciting match that I made chains instead of rings around the center of the flower. Thankfully I was using short lengths of thread (leftover), so it was easy to pull the stitches off the core thread.

With the blue flower, I became comfortable hiding the cream tail within first few stitches (tatting over tails) – ds as well as tds! Pass the tail through the base of the tds loop just before pulling it close.

I noticed one thing. Even if the central tds ring lies a bit flat, the next round of rings pulls it all into a 3D flower.
Pattern for the 3D flower.

The tail(s) have been left uncut because I may need to work them into a tiny bouquet in future. It’s messy to store but keeps my options open.

It is easy to invert the petals with a sleight of hand! In the center, the blue petals are inverted. In the inset, both flowers have downward facing petals. I see a toothpick attached to the base of these to use as an umbrella for a drink!

I’d like to explore treble tatting a lot more, but it’ll have to wait a while. For now, I can only hope that Ninetta doesn’t distract me further ;-P 

I suggest reading her recent posts for a clear understanding of this technique and it’s place in tatting. For all posts/info on Treble Tatting start here.

UPDATE : see Ninetta’s comment below for TWoT tip

Many thanks, Ninetta, for this new technique and the lovely patterns !

(and keep the sneak peeks coming)  ;-P