Snowflakes in June

There has been a flurry of curses!

I've been tatting intricate snowflakes for what seems like ages.

I calculated that I would need eight for Christmas gifts for next year. I thought I had all eight of the snowflakes done. I washed them and got them soaked in the stiffening solution. It wasn't until I was actually pinning them out that I discovered two of them have mistakes. ONE of them might be salvageable. It's missing a picot and likely 10 double stitches in one of the outer arches. That one I might be able to fudge through enough to use on my own Christmas tree.

The other one has a mistake that is so bad that it is destined for the trash. I'll have to remake it from scratch. It is so weird that I can't figure out how I did the deformity that I see. I couldn't even really block it since there seems to be an extra chain in there AND a picot connected to the wrong place. Cutting out the mistake and retatting only that section is not an option since the starching material will prevent reworking. 

All this resulted in a few choice curse words. You can't tell me that those Victorian ladies didn't mutter a few at times.

Further Instruction Needed

I've been working on a tatted snowflake. All was going reasonably well, right up until the end. I then encountered a couple of tricky joins that had me backtracking and retrying, repeatedly, and perhaps shredding my thread to the point of no return.

Those two yellow pin heads are at the locations that need to be joined. I'm now in the process of asking on various tatting forums for help. Are you surprised that there are several? I've been pointed in the direction of several YouTube video tutorials that should be helpful. Not as helpful as having a real life instructor sitting down with me to take me step by step through the process, but a step in the right direction -- I hope.