Crotat - in the begining

I've often looked at Crotatting a marriage between crochet and tatting, and wanted to give it a try.  This year I was able to acquire just the proper hook to use with  my large stash of crochet threads.  I have some larger crotat hooks but they are best to be used with yarn. 

Like any new craft it takes a bit of practice.  I started about six times before I was not splitting/breaking the thread and able to make this lariat necklace with pearl beads.  I found the crotat hook difficult to make the chain stitches so I switched to a regular crochet hook for those. 

I am using this necklace to try different ways of doing the flowers, practice different joins, ways of adding beads and even made some Josephine knots.  By the end of the necklace I should be much better than the start.  

The beads give it a bit of weight and its the perfect necklace for a friend who is allergic to metals.   

I used size 10 cotton thread  and a 1.0 mm crotat hook.   You can see the comparison with a 1 mm  US 11/12 which is below.   The thumb rest on the crochet hook makes it very easy to make the chain stitches, well at least for me.

The picture of the clover and JK below is with a 100%  mulberry silk yarn and a 1.5 mm hook.  The stitches look similar to needle tatting so puffy as opposed to shuttle tatting.