July 26 - Octypus by Ruth

Copyright 2007 Ruth Perry

While SCUBA diving with my husband in the Ocean a couple of years ago we did a night dive and got to play with an octopus in the bay off the world's second largest great barrier reef. They are amazing intelligent creatures!

Here is a little tatted 3 round fellow for your enjoyment.

One shuttle CTM do not cut the thread from the ball.
A piece of cardboard about 1 1/2" wide to make the twisted picots: TP
Twist the thread then wrap it once around the cardboard. Hold the picot in place while tatting the 2 Reverse Stitches on the core. These are tatted like the 2nd half of a split ring. Riego called them Reverse Stitches or RST.

I used a size 20 flora. I did the purple for all my friends who love purple, and that was the ball of thread closest to me when I decided to tat this. Octopi can change colors to hide so any color or any variegated would do.

Instructions:

Center Ring (6 - 3 - 3 )

Round 2: Using the shuttle thread to tat reverse stitches on the ball thread as the core
Reverse stitch chain ( 2 TP 2 TP 2 TP 2 TP 2 TP 2 TP 2 TP 2 TP 2 + 5 + 5 )
Now join to the beginning of this round.
Normal Chain Capturing the twisted picots in an
alligator join Shuttle thread over, ball thread under... ( 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 )
Chain ( + 8 ) turn
Ring (3 + 3 ) turn
Chain ( 8 ) turn
Ring ( 3 + 3 ) turn
Chain (8)

Tie the ends at the beginning of this round. Hide the ends, and then cut.
Slide the twisted picots off the cardboard one at a time, allowing it to twist as much as it wants. You may wish to use a safety pin to hold onto the end of each picot so you can pull it out straight. I didn't do that, and some of my ends separated.