The Beginning

My first interest in tatting was when I was working as a curator of collections at the local history museum.  We were doing an inventory of the textile storage room and as such I saw an awful lot of lace.  I learned to identify tatted items first by their telltale lovely rings with pretty little loops - which I now know to be picots.  I loved the delicate feel they gave to the edges of gowns, chemises and nightshirts.

Several years later, during a special event where local artisans show off their talents in historic crafts, I sat with some girls who were teaching how to make bobbin lace and I thought, "Wow that would be fun to learn."  None of the other museum staff members had a trade like that so I thought it might also make me unique.  Perhaps I could learn to demonstrate lace making myself or even one day sell something. I sat on the idea for at least a year and then I started looking into it. 

After looking into several kinds of lace making, I decided on tatting because it was rather unusual and the initial investment is low.  All you need to begin with is a shuttle and some thread and off you go!  I was concerned (knowing myself as I do) that I might learn to do it, make one thing and then drop it.  I had already done this with crocheting and knitting.  I would get bored with them rather quickly. 

It's been three months so far and I'm still really loving it. 

What I like about tatting:

• It's somewhat esoteric and so not many people do it, making it unique
• In French it's called frivolité
• You can make really neat jewelry with tatting
• It's a conversation starter
• The basics of tatting (the double stitch and picots) are really easy once you get the hang of it
• Reading patterns is challenging
• There seems to be a really great network of tatters out there and I'm looking forward to exploring it

What I don't like about tatting:

• It's somewhat esoteric and so not many people do it
• It is hard to find patterns
• There are some REALLY ugly patterns out there
• Many patterns provide very little instruction, making it very hard for beginners
• Mistakes are VERY hard to undo

Most of what I have learned has come from a wonderful website tattedtreasures.com.

I discovered it in August 2012 and read that she posted her last post in July 2012.  I am hoping that she will come back to it in the summer because she is really a wonderful teacher!  I whole heartedly recommend her website and videos.  I started through all of the projects she has on her website -- I'm currently on lesson 14.

Through my beginning work, I've decided that what I really want to do is make jewelry.  I personally can't imagine making doilies, snowflakes and motifs for no particular reason.  I love jewelry anyway, it makes great gifts and projects are small usually.

So I took a break during lesson 14 to make a birthday present for a friend -- my first piece of jewelry, a remembrance ring, you can find the free pattern here: Remembrance ring .  It was a really fun project (I'll post pictures after the birthday) and I learned a lot, mostly about what I don't know.  It took me about 6 hours and I made a lot of mistakes, but I am proud of my accomplishment.

Here are a few of the wee motifs I've done so far...

That's it for now. :)