Hello, Lovely Tatters!! Here I am again. I may have to just resign myself to being a stay-home blogger. This is how many blogs in a row now?
I will post the full article here, as well, but some folks prefer to look at the actual site.
Tatting tales: not just for grannies any more
The unlikely resurgence
of the craft is far removed from its Victorian lacemaking roots
By Joanne Latimer July 26, 2012
Pamela Quevedo aka TotusMel
Don’t tell a tatter she practises a lost art. And don’t mention
doilies. The next-generation tatters want to distance themselves from prim,
lacy coasters—“the optics aren’t good,” one explains. They would rather make
slave bracelets or Celtic-style chokers while attending a roller derby. Despite
its near invisibility in craft stores, tatting—a form of lacemaking—is
experiencing an unlikely revival. It’s unlikely because tatting is fiddly, a
craft more suited to generations raised to have patience. Yet young crafters
like the meditative aspect and the portability. (Try carrying around a big bag
of knitting and you’ll appreciate the difference.)
The tatting resurgence isn’t splashy and
celebrity-driven—notwithstanding Lady Gaga’s interest in tatted ankle
corsets—but it’s undeniable. “Never thought I’d see the day,” crows Debbie
Coté, owner of Aunt Debbie’s Knit and Stitch in Chilliwack, B.C., which will
offer tatting classes starting this fall. “YouTube gets the credit,” Coté adds.
But long before YouTube, in 1998, Sharon Briggs of Brampton, Ont., posted some
of the first how-to tatting videos. Her blog, Sharon’s Tatted Lace,
is one of many Canadian blogs, along with Carllie B. Fox’s Tat-ology,
at the top of the tatting blogosphere. “There are thousands of people in email
groups. We may tat in isolation,” notes Briggs, “but we aren’t isolated
anymore.”
“Like many tatters I know, it skipped a generation in my family
and my friends think I’m completely nuts for taking it up,” says Toronto
designer Jamie McCurdy, who contemplated tatting her wedding dress this summer.
“We’re a stealth movement,” notes Victoria Clarke, a Manotick, Ont.-based
chiropractor who is teaching a workshop on how to tat a 3D high-heeled shoe
ornament at the annual Fringe Element Tatters conference this September in
Cambridge, Ont. “We’re slowly coming out of the closet. The Internet allowed us
to find each other, and supplies.” Supplies can be a problem. It took
26-year-old Crysta Westoby in the Okanagan Valley over a month to find a
tatting shuttle—the tapered, hand-held tool used in tatting. “I finally found a
beautiful French ivory shuttle in a vintage consignment store,” says Westoby, a
master’s student, “but I heard you can get a plastic shuttle at Zellers and
Wal-Mart now for a couple of dollars.”
Romni Wools in Toronto noticed the surge in tatting interest last
spring. “There’s enough demand to carry shuttles and thread, which wasn’t the
case before,” notes owner Jonathon Leonard, whose staff recently reported
seeing an intriguing young customer with an elaborate tattoo of a tatting
shuttle. Some people tat with a needle, claiming it’s easier. Purists stick to
the shuttle, using superfine, 120-gauge embroidery thread. But the old rivalry
between needle and shuttle tatters is dying out.
The guiding light of the new tatters is a purple-haired steampunk
in California who goes by TotusMel, meaning “all honey” in Latin. Her real name
is Pamela Quevedo, and her videos online have attracted 230,000 total channel
views since she posted them in 2009. She sells about 30 original pieces a month
on the online store Etsy. Prices range from $5 to $425. “I never thought I’d be
a professional tatter,” says Quevedo, 35, who changed tatting’s image with the
Goth-lite jewellery, haunting masks and ankle corsets she makes. Lady Gaga’s
stylist selected, then rejected, the latter for the singer’s Judas video.
Just as knitting broke through the gender barrier (thanks, Russell
Crowe!), so has tatting. “I tat while watching hockey or football,” says Jeff
Hamilton, the Saskatoon-based blogger behind Bridge City Tatting. A
self-described homebody, he taught himself 15 years ago. “It’s not quite
‘woman’s work’ anymore, but it isn’t something I do outside the home. I’m so
envious of all those women who can tat at Tim Hortons.”
Murray Schellenberg has no qualms about tatting in public. “I do
it in movie theatres, on airplanes, in waiting rooms. People are curious,” says
Schellenberg, a Ph.D. student in linguistics at the University of British
Columbia, who learned his techniques in 1991 from an old Time-Life book at home
in Alberta. “I was hopeless at knitting. I’m a binge tatter and, you won’t
believe it, but I’m a doily guy!”
Tatting in Canada is growing, my friends. Look at all the accomplished tatters that are listed here, and there are so many more, too. This is why I'm writing this blog. If you're feeling like there's no one else around that does what you do, please look again. We are HERE! We are active, interesting, engaging, and we would love to talk to you! Please don't be shy!
Happy Tatting!
