Finding the Hidden Rose

 Last year, Muskaan floated the idea of Hidden RoseSnowflake.

I was very tempted to tat it, but totally intimidated by the suggested path for working this beauty! Not because of the lock chains. I have mastered them and I really like the effect. What stopped me from grabbing the shuttles was the thought of digging out clips to hold the picots for later use. I know how to use picot holders, I have managed patterns that use the technique, but keeping everything sorted never turned out well and those clips were stressful to tat around. Not something I could do in the car or watching tv. But, I really liked the design. So, it went in the to-tat pile for “later” and continued to draw my eye.

Well, 2020 has been a year of finding a different path. I was thinking about what I’ve learned this year while sorting through the to-tat pile to find a snowflake pattern for a friend. I thought to myself, “what if I started at the outside and tatted in?” What do you know, it worked! At least for me. Anyone else want to try?   

Hidden Rose Snowflake ready to block

Here’s the short story:

Tat outside ring of R: 5 – 5 .

Tat the 3 lock chains leaving a mock picot at the start of the first lock chain of 7 DS. I also found it useful to use a lock stitch to create a very small picot between the two longer lock chains to use for joining before the inner ring.

Tat the regular chain towards the inner ring, join to that very small picot, then tat the inner ring of R: 5 – 5 . This inner ring will be joined to during the next repeat.

Complete the rose bud with the other regular chain joining to the first ring. Tat the outer chain with TOR and you’re ready to begin the next bud.

These very sketchy directions are not complete. I will get back to tatting this more completely to determine which element is tatted holding shuttle 1 and which is tatted holding shuttle 2. Or for that matter, are the repeats tatted with the shuttles changing positions? Could color emphasis of parts of the piece be easily accomplished? How to place beads on thread to end up where you want them?

A worthy project, but alas, I cannot make it a higher priority than preparing for the classes next month, preparing music for Christmas, or completing several challenges. I will place it in the to-solve pile.