Tatting

Apparently, I haven't talked about tatting on this blog. You can see more of my tatting on my other blog, My Heirloom Tatting, but I thought I'd share some here, too. 

Tatting is a very old, nearly lost art. All you need is thread, a shuttle, and a pattern. Tatting is simply tying a slip knot over and over. The designs come from leaving space between the knots or by primarily using the shuttle thread knotted around the ball thread or the ball thread knotted around the shuttle thread.  

I first saw tatting when I was 13 years old and was in the hospital to have my appendix removed. My roommate was an older lady and spent alot of her time tatting. It intrigued me...ALOT. 

When I was seventeen (1980), the Young Women's leaders wanted us to learn something new to commemorate the bicentennial of the church's organization. I told them I wanted to learn how to tat. They found an older sister in our ward who could teach me. It can be tricky to learn how to make the slip knots and it was important to check often to make sure I could still slip my work as I went. About half an hour later, I had it figured out, and I was off. 

This is an example of my first tatting project. This bookmark was the only thing I made for several years. 

Finally, in 1989 my sister asked if I could make a baby bonnet and booties for her sister-in-law. I said I would give it a try. That was the beginning of big tatting projects. There is a picture of the first bonnet pattern I made on the other blog. I ended up making three of that pattern. It wasn't my favorite so I looked for other patterns to use. I've also made many doilies and there are pictures of some of those on the other blog, too. 

Below are more bookmarks. I finally got tired of making the same pattern of bookmark all the time, so I looked online, found some pictures and patterns I liked, found some patterns of edgings in my books, and I'm set. 

 

This one (red) was an edging in one of my books. I just had to figure out how to make the turn around the ends. 

I found this one (purple) online. I could easily see how to make it just from the picture because it is very similar to one of the bonnets I've made. 

For this one (pink) I found a pattern online. 

This one was also from a photo. It uses the split ring technique. For this one, two shuttles are used instead of a shuttle and ball. Half the ring is worked, then it is flipped over and the other shuttle is used to complete the ring. 

This was from another photo. I wonder if it was meant for needle tatting which I have never wanted to learn. I tried it with the split ring technique and then figured out a better way with just one shuttle. 

And here's the last one...for now.