Single-threaded Tatted Platonic Solids Tutorial

Single‐threaded Tatted Platonic Solids Tutorial By Andrés Manceñido

Single‐threaded Tatted Platonic Solids

Tutorial

By Andrés Manceñido

For all your doubts, critics and feedback please e‐mail me at [email protected] or contact me at http://www.intatters.com/ (Username: Andium)


Know your objective: First of all, if you are not familiar with platonic solids you should read the appendix at the end of this document to get used to some of the terminology used in this tutorial and for some useful data and images. Getting ready: To do this tatting all you’ll need is: ‐ A nice thread. ‐ One Shuttle. ‐ A number of beads equal to the number of vertexes of the polyhedron you are going to make. ‐ A crochet needle (optional). ‐ A pair of scissors. The technique: All the platonic solids are made using only rings (or single shuttle split rings), one for each face of the solid, following these steps: 1) Decide how many stitches will form an edge. About 8‐10 for triangular faces, 6 for square and pentagonal faces. You want an even number because for each edge you will always alternate stitches and joins thus: 1‐2‐...‐1. All these picots are very short joining picots. All the edges will have two rings (one for each face) joined all along the edge. 2) Load a shuttle with thread and as many beads as vertexes in the whole solid. Note that if the solid has vertexes where 4 or more edges meet, you will need to leave some slack on the thread when you put each and every bead. (Of the regular platonic solids, only the octahedron and icosahedron need this) 3) Start the first ring: leave one bead before the circle and slide one less bead than vertexes on a face into the circle around the fingers.

4) To put the first bead at the beginning hold the bead outside the circle, make the first half of the first double stitch, before tightening it pass the thread end through the stitch. (Fig. 1) Continue tatting over the tail for 4 or 5 stitches more. Afterwards cut the end.

Fig. 1



Fig. 2

Fig. 3

5) Make the first edge as explained on step 1). Slide a bead into a picot and make the next edge. Repeat for all the edges of the first face, close the ring without posting the shuttle through it. (Fig. 2) 6) Each time you finish a face, with your fingers shape the polygon so all the sides are equal (sometimes when closing the ring some stitches get more squeezed than others). In the last rings or very little rings, where you can’t pull with your finger properly, a small pair of scissors used “backwards” (passing the point closed through the ring an opening the scissors) could help. You will not get a perfect polygon and it will be slightly rounded (this will compensate when you join the other rings to it). 7) Before starting the next face, you need to count how many new vertexes you will make with this face, and slide that many beads into the circle round the fingers. 8) The first edge of the new face will be joined to the last edge made with the shuttle in the previous face. Pass the thread around the bead and make the first double stitch as close to the bead as possible (Fig. 3). Join to the last picot made, taking care that the thread remains around the bead (Fig.4). Make the edge (1+2+...+1). At the next vertex, pass the core thread around the bead (Fig. 5), and make the next stitch as close to it as possible.

Fig. 4 Fig. 5



9) Before starting each new edge, you need to see if closing the ring would leave the ending thread at a "full" vertex (Fig. 6). You don't want that, so in that case you do a SSSR and tatt that edge (or edges) with your fingers with a doubled thread (Fig. 7), and close in the usual way for SSSR, using the bead at the vertex as anchor (Fig. 8). (Note for geometry geeks: if n is the number of sides in each face and k the number of new vertexes added with a face, the number of sides you will have to finger tatt in that face is n‐2‐k).

Fig. 6‐2

Two “full” vertexes, two SSSR edges needed

Fig. 6‐1

One “full” vertex, one SSSR Edge needed

Fig. 7 Fig. 8

10) Always check that all the threads are “outside” the existing part of the polyhedron before starting every edge. 11) Look if the next edge has to be joined to an existing one, or if it is a "new" free one, and make it accordingly. Also check if at the end of the edge you need to slide a bead or pass the ring thread around an existing one.



12) Repeat this for all the faces. On the last face you can make a simple ring as it does not matter where it ends, and keep the thread to hang them, or if you want to hide the last end you can do that with the single shuttle split ring technique, finger tatting part of the last edge. The result:

Final words: This technique here explained is for platonic solids, but it could be used to make other polyhedrons (like Archimedean solids, or even irregular polyhedrons), or to make a lot of other things (planar tessellations for example), so get creative and go make your own designs! This is my first attempt to write this tutorial (or any tutorial realy), so please let me know any thoughts you have to improve it or any mistakes you find. Finally (but not less important) I want to thank a lot my sister Monica for helping me translating these steps and wording them properly for all of you tatters to understand them. This tutorial couldn’t have been done without her precious help.




Appendix: Platonic solid

(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

In geometry, a Platonic solid is a convex polyhedron that is regular, in the sense of a regular polygon. Specifically, the faces of a Platonic solid are congruent regular polygons, with the same number of faces meeting at each vertex; thus, all its edges are congruent, as are its vertices and angles. The name of each figure is derived from its number of faces: respectively 4, 6, 8, 12, and 20. There are precisely five Platonic solids:

Polyhedron Vertexes Edges Faces

Tetrahedron

4 6 4 triangles

Cube

8 12 6 squares

Octahedron

6 12 8 triangles

Dodecahedron

20 30 12 pentagons

Icosahedron

12 30 20 triangles

More at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonic_solids

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Single-threaded Tatted Platonic Solids Tutorial