August 27, 2017  I started this one, the day after I finished the last one.   On the last one, I started the first center ring normally, doing FS/BS tatting. Because there was a definite back, I could not turn it over and so mine came out going in the opposite direction. The 3 ring row came out frontside, and the 6 ring row came out on the backside (needs rods). So this time I started the first center ring with rods and thought it would change that, that the 6 ring row would be frontside, but no, it's still backside. 

So, I went back to what I tried and forgot how to do in the first glass mat - making my picot joins from the back (side thats away from me) when I'm tatting on the wrong side - so my joins come out like they are made on the front side and the blip is on the actual back side. I like this.  I may decide to make a video of how I'm doing it.

This is so stupid... I'm using size 20 Lizbeth in 603 Ecru and 691 Mocha Brown Med.   So.... it won't show well on a brown table, because the brown rings will disappear... and the ecru is like an off white, so it will disappear on my white coffee tables!!!!!!

About half done with this, and it's going well, but have been distracted by a hippo pattern, so Sept 3 am hours, are doing that - more in next post.

Me thinks the pattern pic in this book is photographed the back, as mine swirls in the opposite direction. But perhaps I wouldn’t know which was upside down, if not doing frontside backside tatting…. on the other hand, it felt backward when working the pattern too. Not to mention it gets weirder when you hit the DNRW on the ends. I just look at my center rings and see which way they are facing and it’s easy to see if I’m on front or back. I took a pic and reversed it with the mirror image function, to help me tat it easier. But, I find I need both pics, because it’s in short rows instead of rounds, I have to have a front and back pic for when I’m working from either side. 
I notice I may run out of thread on the shuttle, so decide to do a shoelace trick while there is still enough on it to finish the chains. So I measure what it seems to need about 6” a ring and add about a foot for the new shuttle, and use the original for the chain. Well, the old shuttle chain thread began to get scarce and came off the shuttle and I had to tie the end back on to the ball so that I could work it up to the last inch…. or should I say the last HALF of an inch!!!  

That was literally all I had left and for the first time in my life I had to cut, tie and glue my ends! 
I somehow thought mine wasn’t coming together enough, after I made the last 9th ring, and thought I’d have to add a wedge, but now, I didn’t. Unfortunately, by the time I realized I wasn’t adding a wedge, I had already not joined the 1st and 9th center rings together and had to tie the picots. A bit fiddly meeting the picots on the last last row’s rings and beginning rings together, but do-able with folding.

Lizbeth Size 20 Thread in 154 Wildflower Garden

August 18, 2017  I got some new thread and needed something to release some pent up anxiety, so started a project I've had on the list for quite some time.    Seems the pic in the book is face down, and so when I look at it, it is backward from mine, which is crazy feeling.   I made a mirror image of it, to help my brain no wig out....   But, as you turn it over back and forth, I find I need both pics.

Most tatting is in normal rounds and so the picture is not a mind boggler when you look at it (or the diagram).   But in this case you are building arms to a spinning wheel, and so they need to go the same way you are working or it all gets topsy turvy feeling.

The pattern is Spinning Wheel Glass Mat, from Mary Konior's book Tatting with Visual Patterns.

Size 20 Lizbeth, 154 Wildflower Garden.   I will put my updates in this same post, rather than string them out, which gets confusing.    I'm using  1 shuttle and ball (CTM).   You can see how when on the right side, mine is swirling the opposite direction.   I will say that if I weren't doing frontside/backside tatting I could just turn it over, but I really do have a front and back.

I’ve been goofing around doing something called KNOTTING. It’s so very basic, not like the most intricate craft one can do, and in fact, I may never get past just making the knots, but thought it would be fun to try it. What it is, is a heavy thread that kinda uses a shuttle - like the very old pics you might have seen with victorian woman and huge shuttles that were open at both ends - they are actually knotting shuttles. They would make knot after knot and it would make a result that was kind of like the fore runner of chenille. 

After making yards and yards of it, then they could make a shape with it. The same way you might find a shape in a child’s coloring book, and the black line is drawing the shape - that line would be like the knotted cord, drawing the shape and couching between each knot to keep it in place. 
Then they could either embroider inside it, or fill it with more cording, or leave it empty. I have no idea which was the most popular back then, there is limited info on it. There a 4 knots to learn. I have 2 links to pages, one has an explanation and things to see, but the other actually has videos. Then I’ll show a pic of my first attempt at knotting. It’s not much to look at, but actually very soothing, as it takes no brain power at all, so good if you just need to relax and not think to hard! I’m actually using a large clover shuttle and #3 cotton thread. My knots still need to be closer together, but are a lot closer than in the beginning. The last ones I made are nice and close.

It takes practice to get theIt's  
There are 2 fabulous links below my pic that shows the difference between what knotting is and what tatting is, and how to do it, and what you can make with it (embroidery type projects).   Although not like tatting originally, it is thought that the use of the shuttle is the beginning of the development of tatting, itself.   

Be sure to scroll to the bottom of the quaintrellelife page, so you don't miss the wonderful examples of it as a finished project.

LINKS UPDATES OCT 19, 2023
Quaintrelle Life (archive.org)  scroll all the way down to the bottom!

(411) KNOTTING SHUTTLES - YouTube

(old links I'm keeping incase I find them archived)
http://www.cfgriffith.com/image-gallery/knotting-shuttle-videos/

This is another link that gives some history of knotting and tatting:
(dead link) https://tatting.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/madtatternewsletter.pdf?fref=gc

new link:  https://www.sidneyherald.com/the-origins-and-history-of-knotting-tatting/article_cfe4e812-4d44-5c5e-bab1-ada38b77402c.html