Retro Tatting Mistakes

On Sunday, I was working on my T.I.A.S. motif which, by the way, I am thoroughly enjoying, when I noticed that I had made a huge mistake.

Here's what happened. I'm going along smoothly following the instructions for Day 6. It's time to add the third thread color on the chain shuttle. No problem. I've done that before. I add in my new color, hide the ends as instructed, and cut the old chain thread.

Unfortunately, after I added the new color I forgot to make sure my work was reversed and that I was going the right way. I was not using the new color for the chain and the chain was facing the wrong way. I started calculating how far back I would have to cut to fix my error. I was doing so well up to this point and I really didn’t want to have to start that section again. So I figured out a way to cheat a little and not have to cut out anything!

I un-tatted the chain that was the wrong color and facing the wrong way. There was only about an eighth of an inch of thread hidden under the double-stitches and I wasn’t sure how I would be able to hold onto to it and feed it into a new chain.

Then suddenly I had an idea. I put the teeniest bit of glue on the thread end and let it dry. It was a little bit tacky which made it possible to re-tat the new chain in the correct color over it without losing the old end. This isn’t something I would recommend doing all the time but it worked in this instance and I was able to continue tatting!

Ahhhh, Day 6 complete.