Motif Twenty-Two

A number of years ago now (probably at least ten years), I purchased a book on ebay that had some very interesting patterns in it. Here is one of the links to it: DMC Library: Tatting (.pdf file) I'm fascinated by old books that have what I consider unusual techniques in them - often what you see in those older books in so similar, one book to another. This book stood out to me for a few reasons - one being that it used a lot of two-shuttle patterns - including things like josephine knots or rings thrown off chains, which wasn't all that common in other books I had (either from my grandmother or found at antique stores). It also combined tatting with some other things like crochet and netting.

The third reason was that this was the first time I came across what is known now as the "self-closing mock ring" - coined that by the Shuttle Brothers in their book introducing the technique in 1999. It is on page 32, fig. 16 - not only does the center ring look like a ring with rings on it - but the outside row also has what looks like rings with three rings on the the outside of them. I looked at it and thought, "how in the world...?" I think the instructions must have been pretty clear because I was able to do it relatively easily, as I remember.

I used it in a pattern for a round robin I was involved in at the time. I remember trying to explain how to do it - at that time it didn't have an official "name" that I was aware of - nor had I or any of the people in the round robin ever seen it before. I think I just called it a chain that was made to look like a ring (self-closing mock ring is really a much better name!).

Anyway, the book has a lot of other very nice patterns in it as well, and for those of you that didn't know it was out there - enjoy! Here is a pin I made with fig. 21 on page 32.