captured in many ways – Part I

 

thread is Lizbeth size 10, pink 619 and seagreen 686

This decorative picot is something new. Many thanks to Muskaan who suggested the name: "Captured Picot". We’re discovering together that there’s a full range of possible effects and two ways of tatting it. But, sorry, I’m going too fast. Let me start from the beginning.

For the #PicotMeEndrucks April 2024 game in the Endrucks 1920 Project FB group, Muskaan compiled a list (only pictures) of Decorative Picots in Tatting - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1D6l4gQWeGu1Se1ZXAhP2vWLQMd4lfzMJ/view

She’s always very inspiring (the visual compilation is coloured and brilliant) and I started a personal study/refresher of both Butterfly and Wide Picots, referring to the list of links of tatting tutorials in Muskaan’s page - https://tipsaroundthehome.blogspot.com/p/tatting-resources.html 

It’s always a wonderful moment when you “see” old things with new eyes. I love Rhoda Auld’s (1974) words – “Part of the time at least think of the activity of tatting, not the tatted piece, as an enjoyable end in itself. Don’t concern yourself with making something but only with doing something, in just the same way that a game of solitaire is an end in itself.” And so, I played.

Every effect shown here in rings can be applied in chains too.

Playing with the Butterfly Picot technique, devised by Lenka Hašková, I obtained a long picot that interlaces with any other picot (it can be in the same ring or chain, or on an earlier element). Of course, I first asked Muskaan if she had seen this effect before, and she suggested sharing a picture in Facebook with the same question. The post is public, posted on 7th May in my Fb profile, and I think that you can open it, even without logging in - https://www.facebook.com/ninetta.caruso/posts/7903614906337830 -. 

(Fig.1)

Actually I found two ways of tatting the basic version of the Captured Picot, and this gives rise to two versions, as shown in Fig.1 above, in pink and seagreen thread. I don’t mean to challenge you to spot the difference, I promise to reveal all details in this post and in the next.

Captured Picot – VersionA

In the comments of the Facebook post, I shared a video showing how I tatted my very first version, the ring tatted with pink thread. 

>>> This is the very short video, that I shot the same day of the Fb post: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qSx3w3sSOS-x_5IhA55-RLqLS5K24FkQ/view?usp=sharing 

Unfortunately, I didn’t make new videos, because my thumb has been “captured” too … it got stuck in a drawer, and, oh well… I'd rather don't make videos with a black nail in the foreground!

However, I prefer visual stepwise pictures to videos, so I prepared a collage for it. I used a thick thai lanyard used for crochet bags.

pic 1 - Start with 3 ds, then a long picot and one ds. The height of the long picot was eyeballed in the thai thread, but with the Lizbeth size 10 I used a gauge of 1/2” vertically.

pic 2 - Pull up a loop from the front through the long picot. This is the same movement that we do when joining. And when you join you put your shuttle inside the loop, right? But - IMPORTANT - in this case the shuttle won’t pass through the loop. 

pic 3 - Put your fingers inside that loop, in a way similar to what Dan Rusch has shown in his (2003) pictorial for the Wide Picot - http://pages.suddenlink.net/tatmeister/widepicot.html? . Also Muskaan did a pictorial on Dan Rusch’s method - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ejb7tVOk15VQHV0omhUt-HIb1CzYAI7I/view .

pic 4 – Then, tat 3ds with the thread coming from the loop.
Note that the stitch count in this step/pic is sort of “strategical”, because the effect will be more evident if the second picot is “captured” at a distance. Hence I would not recommend to tat only 1 or 2 ds in this step.

pic 5 - Open again the main loop of the ring, put your hand inside it, and the working thread will be “captured” by the first long picot.

pic 6 and 7 – Leave a second long picot and complete the ring (I tatted 3 ds and closed it). I used the same picot gauge used for the first picot.

Note that there isn’t encapsulation: the first long picot is not encapsulated in the next stitches.

Muskaan tatted it almost the same day of my Facebook post, and left this comment: “I was also thinking of symmetry. If we pull down the loop instead of pull up a loop through the previous picot, we should get the opposite overlap”. She’s very right! I tried it and here it is a “Single Ring Butterfly”. Who’s the designer? Muskinetta? Lol!!

Single Ring Butterfly - Pattern

Ring: 1 - - 1 +↓ (3) - - 1-1 - - 1+↑ (3) - - 1

Legend:

- -  long picot
+↓ Captured picot, VersionA, pull down loop
+↑ Captured picot, VersionA, pull up loop
(3) = 3ds tatted with working thread coming from the loop  

********

Muskaan contributed with many samples and observations, among these:
1.    the size of the long picots can make a difference in the overall look and how well the interlacing is visible.
2.    Important – the captured picots are both decorative as well as functional. You can easily join another element to either or both picots.

tatted by Muskaan (VersionA, pull up loop): Ring: 5 - - 1+↑ (4) - - 5

tatted by me (VersionA, pull down loop): Ring: 5 - - 1+↓ (4) - - 5

********

In the next post you will find another way to tat the same captured picot, shown in Fig.1 above as “VersionB”.

Ciao, 

Ninetta.

*********************

This post is part of a series:

Captured Picot VersionA: captured in many ways - Part I

Captured Picot VersionB: captured in a twist - Part II

Adjoining Captured Picots and Captured Join: captured and caught - Part III

Triple and Quadruple Captured Picot: captured in Pairs - Part IV

*********************