Spirals

[LizBird]

Your spirals are beautiful from either side. I look forward to when you have some time to write it out.

[frakira]

Looks like you went from the outside to the inside with one color then switched colors and came from the inside back around to the outside to end opposite where you started.

Carolivy, I think you are right - and I think it seems to be easy.. But try it ;-))

[janet6567]

Mariya, I love the combination of the spiral and the flower. I think you've invented a new motif!! Mariya's Spiral!!
I'm really looking at this and can't figure out how you did it, but I do love it.

[PattyD]

I think I've got it! But I think I do it a little different than you do Mariya. Tell me what you think. These are the steps as I tried to solve the issues of connecting the two chains in opposite directions.

I eventually went with normal picots on the first chain that spirals in and the used Catherine Wheel Joins for the second chain spiraling out.

7271618392_217536c89c_b_d.jpg

[carolivy]

Very nice Patty!

[wistarria]

Very inventive and creative!! Love them. :)
And Patty, the steps look really good.
Am a fan of spirals and just haven't seen much of them in tatting with two colors. That is so cool!

[Mariya]

Dear tatters! First of all, I'm very sorry for the long reply! Patty, you are very close to what I did! :)
I will try to explain to main idea. Here is the photo of back side again:
Attachment 16862
The main idea is that you start from the end of one flower, tat a chain with some picots, then change shuttles and tat another chain that is connected to the first one and finish just before the next flower.
The first and the easiest way to tat this would be tatting the first chain with a number of normal picots and connect the second chain to them with Catherine Wheel Joins. However, this way has a serious drawback - the second chain will not be connected to the part of the first chain that is _above_ it, and spiral will loose the form when you try to move the tatting (e.g. using spirals in earrings).
That is why I decided to use downwards picots also. In fact I used some kind of joins that I can't find a name and description. They are something very similar to CWJ but the picot is _above_ the chain, not _below_ it. I hope that it's enough to understand what I mean, but if it is not, I will make a set of photos to show it.
So, some abbreviations:
p - picot
dp - downwards picot
CWJ - Catherine Wheel Join
DCWJ - Downwards Catherine Wheel Join (the join I described earlier).
You start tatting from the back side (!). At the picture the first chain is green.
Ch 8 dp 8 dp 6 dp 4 dp(#2) 3 dp(#1) 2 p(#2) 1 p(#1) 1
Then you change shuttles and turn work, and tat the following:
Ch 1 DCWJ (dp #1) DCWJ (dp #2) 1 CWJ (p #1) 2 CWJ (p #2)
This is the necessary part - tatting the middle of spiral this way you make it stable enough. Continuing tatting this spiral you should do all these steps at the same time:

• Tat (4 CWJ) till the end, where CWJ is connected to the space between stitches (we didn't do more picots on the first chain).
• Tat (DCWJ) instead of ds when needed.
• When you reach the point where the first chain started, make a simple join.
• When you reach the point where the spiral should finish, make a lock join.

Thus you get something similar to the shown spirals. As you can see the problem is to find a point for connection and to have a proper tension along the whole spiral.
Well, I hope that my explanation was not very boring! The only thing I want to add is how to change the size of spiral - you can add as many groups (8 dp) at the beginning of the first chain as you want.