It works!

A few posts back you saw my efforts with part 1 of Kathy's tutorial for interlocking rings with a shuttle. It took me two tries with part 2, but I'm very satisfied with the results. I had a little trouble closing that last ring satisfactorily, so I again removed the thread from the shuttle so I could pull it through to cinch the ring closed. Thank you very much, Kathy. I've place links to your tutorials on my techniques page.

I designed a cross pattern years ago that has interlocking rings in the center. I finger tatted the rings, but that was so fiddly that I've never worked the pattern again. I look forward to giving my design another tat using this method for the interlocking rings.

Shuttle-tatted Interlocking Rings

If you've been admiring the patterns with interlocking rings, but avoid them because you don't want to use needletatting or fingertatting, you really must visit Kathy Niklewicz's blog post where she has begun a tutorial for making them with the shuttle. I'm sure you can't see the problems in my efforts in the photo below as well as I can, but I'm getting close thanks to Kathy. While the variegated thread shows up better in the picture, the larger white thread has been a better choice for my practice. I'm going to devote my tatting time to working on this technique this morning.

Okay, I'm back with a progress report. I carefully followed Kathy's pictures as I went. At photo 9, Kathy says to keep the shuttle thread behind the closing ring and the first ring as you close that second ring. I tried posting my shuttle through the second ring from front to back before closing the ring and it has made a tremendous difference in the appearance of my finished work. I'm going to go over to Kathy's blog to see if she does this routinely (I know some tatters do so). Below are images of my last effort from both sides.