I am currently working on a christening bonnet to one of Anne Orr's patterns from Tatting with Anne Orr and last night when I ended off round five and went into round six I found I had two German Inox Shuttles both of which were about a quarter full of size 40 crochet cotton. These shuttles are quite big - about 3 inches long and around 1/2 inch deep - and I really did not want to waste the thread because the Anchor size 40 cotton is very good quality.

Before I started the next round, I first of all filled a third shuttle to capacity. There was not enough thread in the two part full shuttles to work the next round, so a third shuttleful would be needed and I avoid cutting the ball thread whenever necessary. The round was to be shuttle and ball thread so the extra filled shuttle would mean that it was not necessary to cut the ball thread.

I started by winding about 3 yards of thread off the shuttle and making the first ring in the middle. This gave me enough to start with the continuous thread method and room to work a couple of rings and chains, then I joined in the ball thread as invisibly as possible by tying it to the ring when the loose thread from the shuttle ran out, and taking both the new end and the old one through the stitches of the next chain.

The result is that I now do not waste any thread, I had enough on both the shuttles from the previous round to work lengths of lace and I also have the third full shuttle to finish the round. Yes this means some finishing of ends, but it also means that I don't have to cut the ball thread to get more thread for the shuttle, which gives a smoother finish to the chains. I did have additional balls of the Coats Mercer Crochet Cotton but they were going to take some time to find and I was enjoying tatting too much to take time to go looking for them. In any case there will be situations when just one ball of thread is available and I wanted to share how I think ahead and plan to make sure I have enough thread on my shuttles when only one ball is available and there is no way of getting more.