Coming Soon!

Hello Lovely Tatters!!  I appear to be on a roll!  This is the third post this week!

In case anyone is interested, I'm going to have two interviews to present soon.  I've already presented some questions I posed to Samantha Melnychuk, author of three books ("A Veritable Tatted Blizzard", "Teeny Tatted Snowflakes" and "The Psychedelic Shuttle") and Gloria Nelson, developer of the Bare Threadspace and Picot Tool, the genius behind Sparkling Light Creation Studio and administrator of "Needle Tatting: for beginners" on Facebook.

Shortly, I hope to have submissions from Victoria Clarke, author of "Brace Yourself" and "Tatting the Stone", and another from Karen Negus, proprietress of the Etsy shop "Tatting for Spirit".  Victoria is from Ontario and Karen is from nearby my old stomping ground in Nova Scotia.  I was pretty excited!

Someone asked why I am endeavouring to interview Canadian tatting artists.  Well, because they aren't as well-known as some of the other artists out there and we (Canadian tatters) are a pretty talented bunch!  Unfortunately, Canadians as a general rule aren't all that great at tooting our own horns, so I decided I would like to try and blow the horn for them.

If you're like me and struggling along trying to learn how to do this on your own, please reach out to someone.  When I learned, as is the case with so many other tatters that are old enough to remember life before YouTube and the internet, we learned from poorly written books, badly rendered pictures, or from grandma or a great auntie that just wasn't all that patient with small fingers anymore, even though they tried their best to impart their wisdom.

When I was learning, I felt alone.  I didn't think anyone did this anymore.  I had certainly never heard of needle tatting, then I got reading some books written a long time ago by some very narrow-visioned people who stated that the shuttle was the only "true" tatting tool.  Unfortunately, I followed that assumption for a very long time and if I've offended anyone by telling them they weren't doing "real tatting", I'm truly sorry.  

I've since met and interacted with some extremely talented needle tatters and I'm proud to say I'm dedicated to doing both.  If I have a skill in shuttle tatting, I do what I can to find a comparable way to make that same technique with a needle.  When I write a pattern, I make sure I can do it with both tools.  If I don't like how it looks, I adjust things so that it can be made with either a needle or a shuttle.  I'm not going to lie; using a needle does cause me some pain so I use a pair of vinyl-jawed pliers to pull my needle through the stitches when needed, but we all have to do what we need to do to finish our projects.  I'm not going to apologize for hurting, but I will try and do something to the best of my ability the way that works best for me.

Which brings me to another thought:  tool choice.  I see so many new tatters ask "which do you prefer, needle or shuttle and why?"  Oh, my, that answer is unique to each tatter.  Just because there are two tools does not mean you have to choose one over the other and be forever chained to your choice!  If you're able to wrap your head around both tools, then do so!  You'll be so much better able to understand what it's like to be in another's shoes if you know how they're using their equipment.

There is no right or wrong way to hold your needle or your shuttle.  If you're making the stitches the right way and you're having fun, then it is no one else's place to tell you whether you're doing it right or wrong?  There are artists in this world that are tatting with one hand!  Are you going to tell them they're holding their shuttle the wrong way?  I'm certainly not going to!  Are you going to tell a blind tatter she isn't holding the thread the right way?  I'm not going there!  i am simply amazed they're able to do what they do, and I hope that if one day I meet a challenge to my art, then I can find an adjustment to how I'm doing it so I don't have to stop!

Watch now as I step off my soap box and stow it neatly under my chair so I can get back to my current project;.

Happy Tatting!