Rosette with beads, funny beads

This is about the small black rosette I published some days ago... Love to tease you, love to make you find solutions. This helps a lot to get out a bit outside the box.

One box we are stuck in sometimes is the way to add the beads. They must come from the thread from the hand, from the shuttle or the needle or is has to stay on a picot. Really?? Not this time.
I tricked it. I am not the first one and there are more than 1 way to have this effect but the simpliest one, at least for me, will be described today.
This rosette has 2 rounds. The inner one as pretty easy.

Image	Steps and remarks
	What you need:  Your thread. In my case, Penny 20 this time. 11.0 rocailles, a very fine crochet hook and a beading needle. Or any needle which allows you to pass 2 times through a 11.0 rocaille.  String on the shuttle the beads you need. you must think: 8 beads for each petal. In my case, I needed 7 petals... 56 beads. Just put enough beads on the shuttle to be on the safe side. I was sure I will get a 6 petal flower... I had to unwind the shuttle and add the missing beads...  Prepare to work the inner round. Take 11 beads on the hand and work ring.
	Work 8 ds 4 bp 4 ds 3bp (2 from the hand, 1 from the shuttle) 4 ds 4bp 8 ds, close ring.  4bp: 4 beads picot 3bp: 3 beads picot Do not work these beaded picots too tight, you will want to have some thread for the next joins.
	Petal 2 until 6:  take 7 bead on the hand.  Work 8ds join to the beaded picot by separating the beads (3 up, 1 down) 4 ds 3bp 4 ds 4bd 8 ds, close ring.
	Intermediate phase.
	For the last petal taker only 3 beads on the hand. You will make the last join as a folded join. Do not let yourself impressed by the beads.  Finished first round.  Cute enough actually like this.
	We attack the second round now. I placed the small rocailles on top the the picots with 3 beads... This is where I want them to be.  Therefore, I let my shuttle away and I use a needle. Remember? The needle  supposed to be able to pass through the 11.0 rocaille 2 times... But please keep in mind: the bead will have 1 thread in the hole... when you pass with the needle you will have in that little hole 1 time the diameter of the needle and 3 times the diameter of the thread. When I will explain how it will be done, you will see.  Anyway, because of this simple math and some tests I had to use for this round Penny 30, a thinner thread.  The needle will be used as a shuttle.
	Thread the needle, let enough thread on the needle. It will be you core thread for the outer round. Don't make economy on it... you have some joins too. Do not cut the thread. You will work with the ball too.  Take 1 bead, keep the rosette in place and bead and pass the needle through the 2 beads on top.
	Now pass the needle back through the bead. Fasten.
	Done. Not hard, no science involved. Now you can start to work the chain. Needle tatters will be disappointed: I am tatting with flipped ds.
	I use for this the Riego tatting method. (Please correct me if I am wrong.)  First movement / first hs Wrap the thread on your left hand and prepare to work chain.  Pass the thread from the neddle on the left side of the active thread (the ball) and bring the needle under the active thread as shown in the picture. Pick the needle, make the flip.
	Second movement / second hs Bring the needle from right to the left, pass it under the active thread. Make the flip.  Congratulations: you just made a ds using a needle as a shuttle.  Again: I did not invented it. I guess it was already done before me.
	Easy peasy. I do not give you any ds count for the chain. It depends so much on your thread... My Penny 30 wanted 26 ds to lay flat...  Take 1 bead, place it, continue...
	Have fun.

I hope this is not that difficult. It is actually fun and you will notice how wasy using the needle this way can be. The same movements I use also when I am finger tatting...
Let me know if you do  not understand some steps. I will try to answer as soon as possible.

Bits of history

Wally Sosa asked in Facebook if someone had some informations about tatting before 1860. Wrong move to have read this, because all my phylologist twisted senses got awake. So I dug... and I dug... Not the common sources from the American libraries. Not they do not have the info, but by instinct I searched English sources and French ones. 
I knew from my French studies that there are mentions about knotting in the XVIIIth century and about frivolité as a term applied to a kind of lace. So I did a targetted search for "frivolité", "navette", "frivolité à la navette", "navette à frivolité" and "faire de la frivolité". 
I am not the only one to have done it. 

To make a point, from the beginning: Mlle Riego de la Branchardière was definitelly the one to develop the existing technique as we know as modern tatting. But was she the first one? Definitelly not, because I am sure this kind of lace was worked before, one way or the other. We have the luck to have her compiling this info and publishing her work and new ideas. 

Sooo... the knotting thing. Nothing to do with tatting, that much we know. BUT the shuttle is there. Proof??? many of them! Just have a look at the beautiful paintings of these nice ladies with their shuttles. If you want, I can indicate some sources. Of course they are bigger than the tating shuttle, of course they do not have united ends, but the shape and purpose to work with thread are there. In an other books dated mid XIXth century the shuttle had in the definition the fact that the 2 blades have  "often united ends". 

My guess is that at the beginning, many of these ladies had these shuttle as presents from their husbands (it was after all, one of the marriage gifts), or they inherit them from a passed relative or protector. I think these shuttle were also used to tat, until someone came with the smaller ones. It was the logical step to do, since the thread was thinner. 
The Queen Elisabeth of Romania was still tatting with a knotting shuttle from the family, and we talk about end of the XIXth century, begining of the XXth. 

Back to the size, The Dictionnaire des dictionnaires  mentions the "navette de frivolité"  at pages  890 and 891 as "a tool to make “frivolité”, the shuttle is composed from 2 blades with an olive shape, with pointed extremities and united in the middle. It has to be not more than 7 cm long, and 3-2 cm wide."... still a little bit bigger than the ones we know from Mlle Riego of Lady Hoare.

In a travel sewing kit form the Palais Royal (dated  for the Louis XVth time) there was a small shuttle in ivory. You can find by googeling...  

During the XVIIIth century there were a lot of mentions for the French Monarchy or nobility of legacy, or purchases of a "navette" in gold, ivory, with or without precious stones. Mme de Pompadour had a lot of them, the Princess Adelaïde, there are some paintings and drawings of ladies with shuttles. In at least 2 inventories I found "fond de panier à ouvrage avec ses navettes". I have a full list of them, it would me boring to post it here. 

In a biography of Mme. de Pompadour (1721 - 1764) written by. Goncourt:

Page 419

"… From the Beauvois tapestry to the China piled on the shelf, from the Sèvres cups to the soup bowl in silver, (…) from the gold embellished furniture to a Martin  laquerer of a tatting shuttle, all these collectors pieces and all the beauties of this century, recommend her as a mistress a luxury and small shiny pile of stones"

During her life, she aquired at least 6 shuttle (I have the references and the prices), 3 of them are mentionned in her testament and in the codicile to be given to friends.

The interesting part is that in an inventory done at the Court of Louis XV, there is a clear mention of a "navette à frivolité" (Inventaire des tableaux commandés et achetés par la direction des bâtiments du roi (1709-1792) : inventaires des collections de la couronne / rédigé et publié par Fernand Engerand). 

With one book printed in 1828 we get a bit of information about what frivolité was in France: a sort of edging, done with a needle or a shuttle (a bit later), consisting, mainly of chaings. It is the Manuel des demoiselles: the term frivolité is there, page 53. 

I make it a bit shorter, it is a blog entry, anyway. 1840, this book here has a clear mention about the tatted lace ("dentelle de frivolité"):

In 1851 I found the first mention of Mlle E. Riego de la Branchardière. She participated to the The great London Exhibition, at the section Tapestr, lace, textile ... with crochet. Funny thing is that I searched first for "tatting", I knew Gallica digitized also English texts. So I found a certain S.A. Ellis, "United Kingdoms, speciments in tatting collars, etc" who got an honorable mention. Then I searched for "Branchardière" and I found her at the same page, first column. 

Long story short: yes, there was tatting before Mlle Riego, I think she put on paper what she knew from France and England, and yes, she changed the tatting as it was until her, by making it easier, lacier, with more elegance as never before. 

Thank you Wally Sosa... without this innocent question of yours I would have never put my nose to dig in dusty archives and I would have not learned so much. 

Anecdote: Mlle Riego was sewing the beads on the lace. In The Complete Book of Tatting, at the Parisian Gymp Trimming  (guess. page 25), she indicates it very clearily!  I am no longer ashamed.