An Onion Ring challenge.

I haven't tatted and written in a while... well, more than a while. Suddenly, in the Online Tatting Classes, Ninetta brought a special pattern from Anne Orr's book 14 that you can find in Georgia Seiz Bella On line column.

As soon as I saw those onion rings, I knew that I had to tat it. What was so special? Well, the pattern construction. 

Anne Orr designed a square or diamond of 4 onion rings joined to each other as the base of 4 leaves. 

Ninetta make a great work interpreting the vintage written instructions and also diagramed it beautifully. She shares her diagram in her site, so go and give it a try.

In the Online Class we have discussed some approaches to the pattern. Some very creatives, some too difficult for me. A tatter proposed to use an open split ring. I remembered that had my perfect onion ring and my split onion ring manual, and thought that DSSR / SSSR could be a good idea to jump from one to another OR, but hadn't any idea of the open split onion ring. Caught.

Ninetta's partial diagram

Studying Ninetta's diagram was obvious that DSSR/SSSR wouldn't work at all for me.

I was frustrated. How could it be so difficult? It's just an Onion Ring, for God sake! Four in fact.

Then, heaven opens a magic lane. The Onion Rings weren't the problem. Nor the leaves. But the starting ring!

That first ring was screwing the tatting up. So, remove it. As simple as that!

Ok, wait. We need a shape there, don't we? But what? Can't imagine it? Sure you can.

Self Close Mock Ring, SCMR, TADA! and everything goes smoothly. 

The last onion ring is a little tricky, but no hard to do it. Start the inner as usual, the outer ring starts as a normal ring, join to the fifth picot of the previous ring and follow the pattern to the 3rd picot, split the ring to climb up to leaves construction. The tricky part comes when you have to join to the fifth picot of the first onion ring. Buuuut, remember to close that SCMR after the 3rd Onion Ring.

Now, how I solved the puzzle:

Legend for Round1

R ring, C chain, SCMR self close mock ring, SR split ring, MP mock picot
DS doublé stitch, BT bare thread*, - picot 1/8 or 3,2 mm, + regular join, / split (ring or chain) point 

CR close ring 
<Rings are thrown off> the SCMR's working thread
I use a regular join for joining the onion ring's inner ring to the outer ring.

* bare thread using the same picot gauge size of the picots, always applies to working thread

On_Shuttle_A= 12mt   8cm 8mm or 13yd 0ft 8in  
On_Shuttle_B=   3mt 53cm 8mm or   3yd 2ft 7in  

Add 40cm, 1ft 4in of thread to each shuttle.

[ROUND1]

SCMR=	2DS BT  <R1= 4DS - 4DS CR>  <R2= 5DS - 4DS +R1 1DS - 5DS - 5DS CR BT > #1st onion ring
	2DS BT <R3= 4 DS - 4DS CR> <R4= 5DS +R3 4DS +R2 1DS - 5DS - 5DS CR BT > #2nd onion ring
	2DS BT  <R5= 5DS - 4DS CR> <R6= 5DS +R5 4DS +R4 1DS - 5DS - 5DS CR BT > #3rd onion ring
	2 DS  CR #close mock ring BT

R7= 4DS - 4DS CR  

SR= BT 5DS +R6 4DS +R7 1DS / 5DS +R2 5DS CR #4th onion ring and join to 1st OR
MP= -   #mock picot

[ENDROUND1]

Help for Needle tatting can be found in Georgia Seitz Online Beginning Needle Tatting Class


The second and last round covers the leaves, repeat it 3 times and the pattern is completed

Legend for Round2

PA picot A size 1/8" or 3,1 mm PB picot B size 3/16" or 4,76 mm, PC size 1/4" or 6,35 mm 
RS rotate shape (this one is a new term of my own, applies mainly to rings)
      interchanges threads, doesn't change direction.
x{ } repeat x times the shapes between braces
x( ) repeat x times the stitches between parentheses

Other changelle in that pattern is the stem of the leaf. Anne Orr used the Priscilla's knot, explained in Ninetta's blog, but you can also use the encapsulation method or the Linda Davis' method to tat that stem. Or, you can tat chains instead of the stem if the encapsulation with or without Priscilla's knot is too difficult for you to tat.


[ROUND2]

#First leaf
R9= 4DS - 4DS
C= 5DS +R8 5D SS # join to previous round's nearest onion ring  
MP= - SS # this will be the stem

R10= 1DS VSP 3( 2DS PA)
          2DS PB  
          2DS PC 2( 2DS PC)
          2DS PB 
          3( 2DS PA)
          3DS CR RS
#after close, rotate ring over itself

C= 3DS - 3DS RW

R= 2DS +R10 1DS - 1DS RW
C= 3DS <R11= 5DS +R9 2( 5DS -) 5DS CR> 3DS RW

3 {
R= 1DS +R 1DS +R10 1DS - 1DS CR RW
C= 3DS - 3DS RW
}

R= 1DS +R 1DS +R10 1DS - 1DS CR RW
C= 6DS - 6DS RW #Top of the leaf

3 {
R= 1DS +R 1DS +R10 1DS - 1DS CR RW
C= 3DS - 3DS RW
}

R= 1DS +R 1DS +R10 1DS - 1DS RW
C= 3DS <R12= 3( 5DS -) 5DS CR> 3DS RW

R= 1DS +R 1DS +R10 2DS RW
C= 3DS - 3DS LJ R10 #join to R10's vsp

C= / 5DS # That leaf's stem encapsulating

C= 5DS LJ R 5DS LJ R
R13= 4DS - 4DS CR

# repeat for leaf 2, 3, 4 taking care of joining R11 to R9, R12 and R12 to R11, R13
[ENDROUND2]
[ENDPATTERN]

A nice exercise would be to convert the square to an insertion of squares. Then SSSR and DSSR to Split the ORs would take their place in the design.