a matter of joints

... but nothing related to articulation, here.

After playing for one month with it, I haven't changed my mind about the tatted beaded rope: there isn't only one technique to obtain it and each method can be used to create many different patterns. In fact, it's a type of tatting, it uses tatting techniques, you can obtain many textures and effects just changing the stitches' count or the position of beads, the joint method, the way you tat (clockwise or counterclockwise). Also, the beading pattern needs a diagram, that must be provided besides the stitches' count.

I'm quite sure you didn't miss that I'm not sharing clear&complete patterns, I'm just collecting my personal notes and samples.

Among the many methods that you can choose to join, there's also the Dora Young join (it's showed in her book "All new knotless tatting designs", published in 1974 but recently reprinted - I've the last). Every time I open that book, I find it more interesting than before, that's true!

You can find online how to do it, reading these two pages by Jane Eborall: http://janeeborall.freeservers.com/TipsSplitChain.html (ok, that's for the split chain but the DYJ is quite that)
Or watching this video by Karen Cabrera: Lesson 69 https://youtu.be/aCZ1DRJEL5o

In the following pic, the rope is tatted with only one shuttle, loaded with beads, every each 3 beads I joined with the DYJ. I started with a ring, 3 picots separated by 4ds, then started sliding 3 beads and joining to the first picot. The spiralling effect is created by both the beads and the double stitches in the pattern. I have joined always on the left side of the group of beads. The amazing thing is that it is a one-shuttle's pattern but I tatted only one ring as a starting point, the rest is just a matter of joints. Only Dora Young could have made such thing possible, one shuttle and no rings...

Beads are aligned horizontally, any beading loom pattern can be used to create a texture, just load beads on the shuttle's thread, for example using the same beading diagram I used for the Demmer's rope (https://ninettacaruso.blogspot.com/2019/10/roberta-was-her-name.html)

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Another way to join is the lock join: another name for this is "shuttle join" and that is how you can find it mentioned in old books, like in Priscilla's. For example, it is used in the classic "snake chain" pattern (even if many tatters join the turns with the ball thread).

When Elisabetta De Napoli shared her tatted beaded rope in Facebook, she was so kind to share her pattern and let me share it here, too. That is what she wrote:
Work with shuttle and ball. All beads are loaded on the ball thread.
Start with a ring of 4 picots separated by 3ds; then continue with chains with the same stitches' count (that is 3ds),  then lock join to picot (same as if you were tatting onion rings with outer as a chain), then slide a bead. Repeat all around, for all 4 picots, then lock join at the base, slide a bead and repeat, joining at beaded picots of previous round.

The effect is different from the method showed in the video by K.Cabrera here: https://youtu.be/QUkPBSaIWTc. In fact, in that method the join was chosen among those that lets the core thread free to slide, like the slop'n'roll.

My samples from Elisabetta's pattern are a little different, because I used different beads, also I tatted 4ds between each bead (instead of 3ds):

((Update: this is the same technique used in this video by Karen Cabrera:

Lesson 183 - Sphere - https://youtu.be/34OzAk6Hecw ))

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Then, I thought to use the same lock join method, but with more beads in picots.

The next is with 6 beads on each picot (loose, in order to lock join in the middle in following row) :

(UPDATE: same method used for the little beaded bag in Priscilla#2 fig.91)

The next is a continuous chain, each round has a different number of beads in their picots, and I also tried a sort of beading pattern, just to see how it would have looked:

Stringing beads for that, it wasn't easy: each picot has beads that can play a role in different rounds of the beading pattern, I had to draw that, to help me to visualise how it goes:

In the next pattern, each blank space is a white bead, for the red dots I used the brown beads. Only the ball thread is loaded (SH2 in the diagram) and only the string for the first and second rows is showed on the right.

Ciao,
Ninetta

Dora was a wit

Have you ever thought that tatting could be knot-less? I love the title of Dora Young's book, "All new knotless tatting designs"! She had a great sense of humour!

The edging has been tatted with DMC white thread, size70. The first and second rounds are tatted with the "knot stitch" explained in Dora Young book, but with only one thread wound on core shuttle. The third round is rings and chains all 4ds between each picot (or join), only one split ring, to climb from second to third round.

(The butterfly is copper, handicraft from L'Aquila.)
Actually, I had a false start.

I started the one on the left, but I didn't like it, so I started again leaving more room between stitches.

Then, I followed a tip by Carollyn (tennbrown.blogspot.com) that writes she blocks her tatting overnight. She does tat wonderful things, we all tatters learn from each other. Lately she's been busy making again beautiful bunny shuttles, you'd love them!

That picture was taken after the second round:

The book arrived in a week, thanks to the great service offered by  Tatting and Design  in UK.

My copy arrived just in time to join the Online Tatting Class, last Monday, and to study the technique called "knot stitch" by Dora Young.

That it is not the same of the patented technique known as the split chain. Please read more
here: http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art305271.asp
and here: http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art305272.asp
and here:https://www.georgiaseitz.com/2018/patterns/janeedyknotstitch.pdf.

Also, Karen Cabrera shared a video (https://youtu.be/uruYBQ6Hi8w), where she shows the knot stitch (=ks) tatted in rows (that is she turns the work and go back for next row); while in the DY's books there are patterns with knot stitches tatted in rounds, for example in a doily (going always in the same direction, clockwise), and climbing up the next round with a lock stitch (not a full ks). During the class Karen shared her first sample using only 2 threads (instead of the 3 used in the book - great idea) and other tatters shared their samples, too.
Here they are: tattinghomework.wordpress.com

I also shared my attempts, but not the very first ones, those were all knotted!

This time I started attaching the stitches to a piece of fabric, like in the edging N.21 at page 31 of the book, but I followed a triangular pattern, made up just to practise tatting the ks. For helping me to hold the picot in position, I used a paper clip, that turned out to be the key for me, otherwise my picots kept on closing. I started with 2 threads, one in the SH1 and one in SH2, then in 3rd row I added a second thread to SH1 and tatted row 3 and row 4, then cut out the 2nd thread from the shuttle and continued with just one. Two threads on shuttle tend to twist and I had to drop the SH1 very often. I used a  DMC size 40 cotton thread on SH1 and a comparable size polyester sewing thread on SH2 (gutermann ca02776). Only my personal opinion, but I like it a lot with 2 threads only.

Ciao,
Ninetta