Starter Picot pictorials

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 Ninetta and I have been working on a resource page dedicated to the Endrucks 1920 Project. Over the years many tips and pictorials have been shared but they were scattered. In our attempt to finally gather and organise them, we discovered certain lacunae and decided to create pictorials and/or videos to address the issue. 

One such is the Starter Picot or Starting with a Chain. Several of Eleonore Endrucks' patterns in her 1920 book 'Die Schiffchen-Spitzen', start with a chain. She ties two threads together, and starts with a chain of 1ds, picot, and the rest of the chain. Of course most tatters now start directly with a picot and with continuous thread (CTM). Yet there are different approaches. Following are glimpses into the options detailed in the PDF which I won't repeat here....

Please note that this is a compilation sourced from various sites/blogs, some of which are no longer accessible. It is the reason Ninetta and I wanted a resource that did not have to rely on outside links, as far as feasible. The only outside link we included is for The Online Tatting Class, besides our own blogs. As it is my Tatting Resources page (tab above) lists tons of outside resources with credit. 

Starter Picot Options with Pictorials by Muskaan Oct2025 (starting with a chain) - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vzSHMxas51Yn5iujdmror1obx27AuIhw/view

1. Starter Picot with paper clip, marker, or coilless pin.

Between the choice of spacers, I prefer the thread marker (or luggage tag loop) as you might remember from my past posts. I find it less interfering, and more importantly we can measure the picot to the exact size required - https://tipsaroundthehome.blogspot.com/2023/01/measured-picot-on-core-thread.html

2. Starter Picot with 1st half-stitch

or 2nd half-stitch

I left out this 2nd hs collage from the PDF since it is basically the same as the 1st hs pictorial.

3. Starter Picot with lock stitch

What happens when we want to work with two colours or we have leftover threads on our shuttles and wish to use them? Obviously CTM is not an option, but we do have False CTM. 

4. Starter Picot with false ctm in two-colour tatting

5. Starter Picot with false ctm in two-colour block tatting

The above collage was shared by Ninetta showing a two-coloured block in progress. And she starts the 1st chain with 1ds, picot like Endrucks. However, instead of tying the threads together, she uses the false CTM method.

For many more situations in which a False CTM comes in handy, click on the tag at the end of the post. I have two dedicated posts along with some specific projects where I used it. https://tipsaroundthehome.blogspot.com/search?q=false+CTM

Hope this is helpful in your future projects.