Daisy Picot Snowflake

I have not made anything with daisy picots for a while and was wondering if I still remember how to do it. I searched Riet's blog for the instructions because I first learned it from her, but I couldn't find it there anymore. I have lost the paper with the instructions that I printed earlier. So, working from memory, I managed to produce this simple snowflake.


And, so that I'll know where to find it again, I am putting up a how-to for the daisy picot, using the instructions for this snowflake as a working sample.

First, the pattern for the snowflake -

Wind two shuttle with different colour thread for each shuttle.

The centre Daisy - 6 rings altogether.
R(5-3-2-2-3-5). You can make the centre picot slightly bigger for decorative purposes.
R(5+3-2-2-3-5), joining to the last picot of the previous ring.
The last ring is joined to the previous ring and also to the first ring with the folded join.

Round 1
R1(6+6), joining to the 3rd free picot of any of the rings in the centre daisy.
R2(6+6), joining to the 1st free picot of the next ring of the centre daisy.
Reverse work.

Make a chain C(2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2) Do not reverse.

(*)Now make the daisy picots with 3 petals, where each petal is (5-5) and 2ds between each petal.

Close the ring, do not reverse and repeat the chain.

Reverse work and repeat the two rings of R(6+6), joining the 1st ring to the 3rd free picot of the previous ring and the 2nd ring to the 1st free picot of the next ring of the centre daisy.

Reverse work and repeat the chain (2+2-2-2-2-2-2-2), joining to the last picot of the previous chain.

Repeat from (*) to complete the snowflake.

And how to make the dasiy picot -

1. After making the first chain, do not reverse work. Loop the thread from shuttle 1 (blue) round the fingers and make 2 ds. Drop shuttle 1 but keep the loop round the fingers.

2. Now. flip the chain so the the picots are now facing to the right. Here, you can see that the thread of shuttle 2 (pink) that makes the ds of the chain is on the right.

3. With shuttle 2 (pink thread) make an unflipped ds onto the loop thread, starting with the 1st half like the normal ds, followed by the 2nd half.

The completed set of 5 ds on the loop thread should look like this.

Complete the first daisy picot with (5-5).  Make sure the ds are snugged up close before starting the next step.

4. Bring the thread of shuttle 2 (pink) to the left.  Now pick up shuttle 1 and make two more ds (flipped) onto the loop thread. Bring these two ds close to the first two ds and you can see the first petal of the daisy formed. To test whether you are making it right, pull the thread from shuttle 1. If it slides, then you are on the right track.

5. Repeat step 3 and 4 for two more petals of the daisy picots.

6. Finally, close the ring by pulling the blue shuttle thread. You can see the that the blue ds forms the shape of a tiny ring and the rings made by the pink thread are like picots to this tiny blue ring.

I hope you find this beautiful technique useful and I want to thank Riet for showing me how to do it in the first place.