My perfect Onion Ring

This is not about computer's application for tatting lace. It's a development about tatting onion rings.

Onion Ring is a complex shape made of one ring surrounded by a bigger ring, using one thread for both rings. In the old books I've read, onion rings didn't join outer ring to a inner ring's picot. Perhaps this has been a modern modification trying to keep the rings in the intended position.
 
Well, onion rings have been a headache. I'd never tatted a nice, flat, well looking onion ring.

When Georgia asked us to make samples from Nellie Youngburg's book I chose to tat pattern #37 and didn't realized it had many, many onion rings!!!

After some tries I finally developed a method to make the perfect onion ring for me.

1) Tat inner ring following the pattern instructions and start the outer ring as close as you can to the base of the first one. Do not reverse, turn or rotate work.

Now the magic step:

2) Tat 1st DS of the outer ring and put the inner ring between the outer ring's working and core threads, the inner ring will face down into the outer ring's loop.

 



 

3) Tat the rest of outer ring's stitches.

Take care of not leaving a gasp between the outer ring's stitches unless you want or need a picot in that place.

If the thread is thick you can tat 1 FK (DS's first knot), inner ring, 1 SK (DS's second knot)

4) Close outer ring.

I don't leave a bare thread before the first ring or the second ring, but when tatting a 3 rings Onion Ring I do leave 2 or 3mm before tating the first one.

It also works pretty well even if you don't join the outer ring to the inner ring like old onion rings (this was the reasson to create a method for old onion rings). If the outer ring is really big this method makes the inner ring to hold its place inside of the outer ring.