Learning A New Technique

Day 338: There I was, going blithely along after having tatted several split-ring snowflakes, and suddenly the eye of my needle was on the wrong side of the work, preventing me from drawing the next ring closed in a manner which left the working thread in the proper position. My first thought was that I had read the pattern incorrectly, but no, I'd followed the arrows, worked the sections in the proper order, but my needle was definitely backwards. Then I realized something: although I've needle-tatted "throw-out rings" (TORs) on chain sections, I had never orphaned a ring off another ring. My pattern was written for shuttle tatters, but theoretically, everything you can achieve with a shuttle should also be able to be done with a needle even though it may require different steps. Thinking that was the issue, I pulled the work apart and started over. After several hours of frustration, I was almost resigned to having to form one ring as a series of chains which would have left it more angular than the rest, but I was still sure there had to be a way. After dragging out several other tatting books, I found the answer: use a second needle for the TORs. Live and learn, they say, and I consider a day wasted when I don't learn at least one new thing, although I usually like to know that I'm entering the classroom before I get partway into a project.