Paperwhite - Ow!

I thought that since I was in the mood for spring, that I'd continue in the daffodil family and tat a paperwhite. Paperwhites are little and they grow in clusters. To get the right shape I thought that I'd tat up one side of a petal and down the next using graduated ring sizes to get the wider middle section. The trumpet shape on a paperwhite isn't very pronounced so I decided that beads would give enough of a suggestion of stamens and a single row of tatting would do for the trumpet shape. The central ring is tatted with 3 beads on alternate picots of the centre, beginning with a bead on the first picot leaving the last one as a mock picot. The first row has short chains with a picot in the middle. You'll note tiny stars on this picot in the diagram as row 2 and the trumpet shape both join into this picot.

The rings forming the petals are tiny with lots of joins. The rings at the tips are 3-1-2 or 2-1-3, with the longer side (3) to the outer edge of the petal, and the other side joined to the ring beside it. Over 10 joins on each petal for 6 petals, made for jabbing the hook through the picot and against my finger over and over again nearly 100 times for each flower and since they grow in clusters I did 3 of them in a 24 hour period, finally wearing a hole into the side of my finger -owie.

The flower is about 1.75 inches across done in size 30 thread. I think it might work in size 20 thread if one ring and chain repeat was omitted from the middle of each petal, but I'm not going to try it as my finger is presently out of commission. Size 40 thread would make a slightly smaller flower, but it still roughly the right size for a paperwhite.

The pattern for this little gem is really very easy without any split rings or split chains or really anything special but it does make a cute little flower. There are a lot of stitch counts in a very small space, so let me know if the pattern isn't readable and I'll get it reposted in a larger format.