Rings and Rings

Right now at the Illinois State Museum, there is a display of Civil War era quilts and other textiles.  In one of the cases are several socks, mittens and doilies that have been knitted and crocheted.  My friend, Jane, brought it to my attention and she had the idea of seeing if they will let us try to reproduce the socks after the show is over. 

We had a discussion about one of the pairs of socks that has a mixture of patterns, one of which looks very much like tatting:

It had been a while since I'd seen them so I went last week to see if I could get some better photos like the one here.  See the little circles?  I knew I'd seen this pattern before and found it in the "Victorian Lace Today" book by Jane Sowerby.  It was from an 1860s shawl pattern from Mlle. de le Branchardiere's book, "The Abergeldie Winter Book."

I know that in all the patterns and books Jane and I have studied, this was the only time I'd seen this type of spider pattern.  The only thing we're going to have to figure out is how to intersperse the rings with the triangles (although I do have an idea about that).

It's a pretty tricky pattern and after 4-5 goes with black lace weight wool yarn, I decided I would try it with size 8 perle cotton.  Besides I have a new house that needs some curtains.  What better way to test it out!

I think this is going to do us very well with the sock pattern and I think it's going to be a very pretty curtain valance, don't you?  Although I think I've got the rhythm of it now, I did have to rip out about 3 times on the 2nd and 3rd rows.  But I still have to pay VERY close attention.  So if you hear someone walking around Springfield muttering, "ONE, two, three, FOUR, five, six...ONE, two, three, FOUR, five, six...One, two..." that'll be me.