Victorian Tatting the Weldon’s Way: Trefoil Edging

Weldon’s Practical Needlework houses a wealth of information on Victorian tatting. Here’s our thirteenth installment in this series fromWeldon’s Practical Needlework, Volume 4. The following are instructions for how to tat a “Trefoil Edging.” The material is reproduced here just as it appeared in England in 1889. No alterations or corrections were made.

Illustrations from Weldon’s Practical Needlework, Volume 4.

TREFOIL EDGING.
THREAD the shuttle with Evans’ crochet cotton, No.14. Make a loop with the shuttle thread, work 5 double, 1 picot, 3 double, 1 picot, 2 double, draw up; * make a loop close to the last stitch of the oval, do 2 double, join to the last picot of last oval, 3 double, 1 picot, 3 double, 1 picot, 2 double, draw up; make another loop close, do 2 double, join to the last picot of the oval just made, 3 double, 1 picot, 5 double, and draw up; arrange the three leaves of the trefoil in nice form; reverse the work, take a second thread, make a loop, and work 6 double, l picot., 6 double; reverse make a loop with the shuttle thread, with 5 double, join to the last picot of last trefoil, 3 double, 1 picot, 2 double, and draw up, and repeat from * for the length required. Work a straight line of crochet along the top of the edging, 1 double crochet in the picot of the straight bar of tatting, 8 chain, 1 double crochet in the next picot, and continue.

If you missed any part of this series on Victorian tatting fromWeldon’s, you can catch up on all of the blog posts <a href="https://pieceworkmagazine.com/category/victorian-tatting/" rel="noopener" target="blank">here. Find out more about tatting in our video download_ Shuttle Tatting with master tatter Georgia Seitz. If you have created any items from this series, we would love to see them. Please email us at <a href="mailto:piecework@longthreadmedia.com" rel="noopener" target="blank">piecework@longthreadmedia.com._

Featured Image: Weldon’s Practical Needlework, Volume 4, offers up a wealth of information on Victorian tatting.