renewed on the third try

That is about another challenging pattern for the "Endrucks 1920 Project". 

It is a community project, we welcome you to join in! All infos and links are in the Endrucks 1920 Project Document, here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/17LEVftXweztBIOWh4sL4BB7bX65ssoOsOn4oXIgCepY/view?usp=sharing

The medallion in picture number 40 in the book drew my attention.

The original models, in the old book, were clearly tatted with a very thin thread (actually I've tatted mine with size 80 threads) but I've always thought that the thread's size doesn't affect the pattern. Anyway, in those patters there are elements very close to each other and the "heigth" of the double stitches could affect the final result. The tatter's tension looks very different from mine, it seems that they used to tat very loose, there are bare threads between chains and rings and picots are different in size, some are long and others are very small, without a clear schema/plan. Nowadays we are used to a more compact look. I also believe that the designer kept the stitch count regular in every pattern to help the tatter to easily memorise them.

On my first attempt, I followed the original pattern, but the centre looked distorted and the outer rounds cupped. The cupping disappeared after stretching it.

Thread is Lizbeth size 80, colour 154. Despite it looks almost fine, I was not happy with it, especially for the packed centre. 

Then, I reduced the stitch count for the inner rings and it was far better, all rings fitted well and was not squashed. Also the smaller centre should have helped me for the cupping problem in next rounds.

Thread for the second sample is DMC Special Dentelles, size 80, colour 818 (pink). I didn't change the stitch count in the outer rounds. The centre is a wee bit smaller than the original one, but that was not sufficient, the outer round was still cupping:

I don't like stretching my tatting because I am afraid that it will break! Then I needed a third try!

Note that in the original there are floating rings in the centre, but I didn't tat the inner floating rings in the second sample and I didn't tat any of them in the third sample. 

Eventually there was a simple solution, that was to "enlarge" the edge of last round and to reduce a little more the second last round. To make that, the ring&chain elements in the second last round have been substituted with split rings...

...and then the block tatting in the last round has been changed a little too, adding a couple of ds for each block at the outer border of the block tatting (2ds x 8repetitions means adding 16ds to the outer border):

I'm happy with the result, I didn't need to stretch it and it is almost flat even just off the shuttles!

Thread for that last sample is DMC Special Dentelles size 80, colours 3778 and 368.

I'll put in Flickr the drawing for the medallion, within few days, with notes for tatting both the original and the last modified sample.

UPDATE: Pattern is in Flickr

Ciao,
Ninetta