But What Do I DO With It?

Hello Lovely Tatters!

I’m hoping this finds all of you and yours safe, sane, and healthy. That’s a tall order these days, I know, but I don’t like the alternative. For myself, I spend a great deal of time in solitary pursuits so time away from other people isn’t frequently a hardship. For some others, it can be a very challenging issue and I hope you’ve got a support network! 

There’s nothing worse than trying to deal with being alone when you’re not accustomed to being able to come and go at your leisure, then suddenly being told you can’t go to your “zen” places. It’s like having the rug ripped out from under you, I’m sure! Never a fun feeling. For this reason I am so grateful for my tatting community at large, and several people therein that I consider friends. Shoutout to my “peeps’, you will never know how very deeply I appreciate each and every one of you!

I am frequently found out and about town here (our local lockdown guidelines still allow for socially distant use of restaurants and coffee shops) I take my tatting. I’m frequently approached by a masked face admiring the work or wanting to just watch. One thing I always get asked, however, and it does bug me: “What do you DO with it?”

It’s at this point that I grab my phone and open up my “Tatting” folder in my picture app. I take photos of everything I’ve completed, or I take pictures as I’m designing so I can see the progression of an item and think about where to make changes. I also have a notebook, but it’s all scribbles and I doubt anyone could read it.  If we're being honest, there are times I can barely read it myself. Unlike my good friend, Sandi, I'm not that great with a pencil and paper.

In my photos are pictures of so many things. I have pictures of ice drops, button ornaments, doilies, baby booties, decorated keys, jewelry, snowflakes, baby bonnets (one of which I was able to make when employed at an historic village restoration in Nova Scotia!), barefoot sandals (popular for beach weddings), decorative bags (made one as a gift for a friend's knitting goodies), the list is ENDLESS!!  Put it this way, if you can make it with knitting or crochet, you can make it with tatting!  Do you like pineapple crochet doilies?  There is a lady in one of the tatting groups that is developing a way to make them with tatting, and she's doing a bang-up job, too! No, I'm not into pineapple designs, never have been, but I can appreciate the work that goes into converting the pattern and making it work.

Tatting is "knot" a lost art!  It is making a resurgence and since the pandemic hit, that resurgence is gaining momentum like gangbusters!  If it was a snowball rolling down a mountainside, it would be the size of a small city by now and shows no sign of slowing down!  Tatting patterns, once written in what I considered a foreign language, are now written in any way you might like to read them.  Charted, point form, paragraph form, some are presented in videos, some are step by step with photos.  There are beautifully edited blogs (unlike mine that is relatively boring, sorry, I'm not a tech guru!), some with wonderful videos.

If you go to your web browser and type the word "tatted lace" or "tatting lace" or just "tatting", you'll get some hits that include tattoo art, but you'll get an unbelievable number of sites that offer eye candy of unbelievable beauty.  There are tutorials, there are videos demonstrating advanced techniques.  Blogs that outline patterns, or offer information on where to find things.  If you can find a language, there's likely a tatting blog written in it, and maybe in some languages you've not thought of (and that's where the "translate" button on the browser bar comes in SO handy!).

Tatting, for me, has been sent from Heaven.  It has connected me to a global community of wonderful and talented people that are so willing to share what they know with anyone interested in learning that I'm sure the art will thrive.  People share their patterns freely, yes, but others have put in exhaustive work and are selling their books; the result is most often just breathtaking.  

If you're just starting on this journey, you're embarking on a life-long passion that will become an addiction, so consider this fair warning!  You will lose yourself in the grace and balance that offers itself freely in the rhythm of making the knots, and in the graceful curves and loops afforded by the rings and chains.  It can be mesmerizing.  You're entering into a world-wide community of artisans that are warm, welcoming, intelligent talented beyond words, and willing to help any way they can.  Glad to have you with us!

Happy Tatting!

Silencing That Inner Voice

Hello, Lovely Tatters!  Wow, two months since my last blog post!  I'm back to my couch potato mode, I suppose.

I've not done a lot to brag about in the last few weeks.  I've tatted a bunch of  button ornaments, redesigned one of my ice drops to work on a button, ordered a ton of stuff I am anxiously waiting for that seems to be forever coming.  

Christmas has come and gone, New Year is now another memory.  We didn't decorate at all inside the house, but the front lawn looked like Las Vegas at night!  Between us and the neighbours, I'm sure we kept the electric company hopping!   Beloved has decided that he wants to add a new display each year.  I wonder if he realizes that we have a finite amount of space to add an infinite number of his display ideas?  I shouldn't complain, it keeps him busy!

I wonder if any of you have had time to look at the tatting groups on Facebook, particularly Diane Cademartori's newest  brainchild,"Tatted Button Ornaments".  These are FUN!!  I thought ice drops were addictive, but I've found myself exploring buttons online in antique sites, Etsy pages, Ebay sites, local stores, online vendors, it's weird!  I may be looking at buttons when I head to the Big City next week when I'm there for another appointment (oh, yay! NOT!!).

Have you considered what you would do to update a motif or existing pattern to work in another application?  It's really not that hard!  It just takes a little "out of the box" thinking. 

Consider the following:

This is my "Suzan Sunshine" Ice Drop, designed for the FaceBook group "Ice Drop Addicts" in 2018.  The pattern is in the files section of that group, if you're at all interested in giving it a whirl.

I've been a busy girl, and I've added to it, as you can see here:

I decided I wasn't happy with the original pattern because it just looked "unfinished" somehow, although I've had many people express sincere pleasure in how it looks and how easy Suzan is to make.  There are two rounds to the update, but it looks like much more and I have to admit, I do like the update!

Now, consider this adaptation:

I told you I was busy over the holidays!  I decided Suzan would lend herself well to a button, and it did!  I was really very pleased with how easy it was to do this!

To further illustrate how easy it was to adapt this to a button, here is the as-yet-unnamed adaptation I made to the Ice Drop, again to fit a button:

This has been a really interesting journey!  Here's another, but this one was never made as an Ice Drop:

This is adapted from the book, "Tatted Treasures" by a gentleman named Jan Stawasz.  It's the main motif from his Waistcoat pattern found in that book.  I have a thing for spirals and had a really fun time with this one.  It worked up surprisingly quickly.  As this was never my pattern to start with, I have not added a watermark to it.

One last piece, and I'm sure this one will resonate with many people:

This one is based on Mary Konior's Spinning Wheel Glass Mat from her book, "Tatting with Visual Patterns".  I'm so sorry, but the photo isn't of a blocked ornament.  I'm afraid the dog got a bit anxious and this got the tooth treatment.  There's not a lot left of it.  

Anyway, the arms are shortened by a ring or two, but beyond that there aren't that many changes needed.

So many of us look at others' works and say "oh, I wish I could do that" or "I'll never be able to do that".  We set ourselves up to fail, and it's so sad.

Perhaps, the next time you admire something and would love to make it your own, don't listen to the little voice telling you that you can't.  Did I waste thread?  Yes, I most certainly did.  Did I get frustrated? Put it this way, we were getting close to a projectile tatting moment at many points along the way!  Did I have to start over again?  Oh, yes!

Did I quit?  NO, I did not!

Don't listen to that ugly little voice telling you can't!  You'll be very pleasantly surprised at what you can do if you just put in your inner ear plugs and don't listen to that ugly little voice of self-doubt and just TRY!

Happy Tatting!