Tatting Wordle 2

My week of Tatting---The ShuttleSmith edition, 2021

I learned to tat on Monday,  

My stitches were very fine.

I forgot to thaw out dinner, 

So we went out to dine.

I tatted snowflakes Tuesday,
They really were a must.
The symmetry was quite lovely,
But I forgot to dust.

On Wednesday I tatted crosses,
I so enjoyed the fun.
I learned to pray while tatting,
But the laundry didn’t get done.

I learned to tat split Rings on Thursday,
It’s fun to use two threads.  
I guess I really was engrossed,  
I never made the bed.

I started a doily on Friday, 
Oh how the colors I adore. 
But somehow in the enjoyment, 
I didn’t notice the dirty floor.

I added beads to my tatting on Saturday, 
They really enhance my double stitches. 
I was so engaged with those shiny things, 
That I ignored the dirty dishes

I found a maid on Sunday,  
My week is now complete.  
Now I can tat the hours away,  
And my house will still be neat.

Tatting Fern

 

I saw this in a gardening catalog quite a few years ago. In the last year my friend Anita Barry either bought one or found reference to this plant. I am archiving it here on my webpage for my own future reference. Maybe one day I will actively try to find/plant one.

Fabric with Tatting Designs

I found this fabric on the web quite a long time ago. The name of the design is 'Lost & Found Love' by Riley Blake Designs. It can still be found on eBay and Etsy to name a few places. It looks like it came in 3 different color options.

 Several years ago I finally joined the neighborhood women’s book club. I will have to profess that in the last 20-30 years I have not been much of a reader. First and foremost, I spend my available free time either tatting, creating needlelace, teaching fiber art techniques, and/or designing/laying out/publishing my books. Keep in mind that I work full-time. But with the realization that I’m an empty-nester, I decided that it was time for me to expand my horizons via reading and what better way than to join a book club. In addition to the stimulation that reading a book gives me, the book club gave me a way to keep in touch with the neighborhood women. And as an added bonus, the get togethers feature goodies of wine and yummy snacks!!! For a long time, I wouldn’t even consider choosing a book for the group to read (they were all experienced readers, whereas I was new to reading). That was until I went to The Sunflower Lacemakers biannual lacemaking retreat and one of the members mentioned that they had found & joined a book club because she had been invited as a ‘lacemaking expert’ while the were reading/discussing a lace related book. This got me to thinking…’what if I used a lace related book to introduce my form of relaxation/interest (lace and lacemaking) to my book-reading friends’?

So I read 2 different books: The Lacemakers Daughter by Diane Keziah Robertson & The Lace Reader by Brumonia Barry. I asked one of the book club members to read both to help choose the most appropriate book for the group and she chose the latter one–The Lace Reader.

I set out a plan to utilize this opportunity to introduce these ‘readers’ to the world of lace. I have a collection of lace acquired through the years in various ways. Some pieces were collected because of my active study of the type: Romanian Point, Teneriffe, Nanduti. Some were ‘rescued’ from antique and thrift shops, some were gifts, etc. None of my pieces are extremely rare or expensive. But all are loved & appreciated. I filled my dining room table with representative pieces of different forms of lace including my own tatting, various needlelace types, bobbin lace, knitted, crocheted and machine lace.

Lower left: machine-made lace. Upper left & lower right: bobbin lace. Upper right: Teneriffe/Nanduti Lace

Lower left: Netted Lace. Swan: Carrickmacross Lace (my design/work). Pile of tatting. My tatting books. Romanian Point Lace. Filet Lace. Knitted lace.

White piece: Knotted lace (Armenian?). Colored: Nanduti. Black: Teneriffe Lace. Storage bins of my collection.

In addition to my collection of lace, I asked my beautiful lacemaking friend, Jennifer Bartling to come in & demonstrate bobbin lacing technique. In the book, The Lace Reader, the characters did bobbin lacemaking. Jennifer drove over 30 miles one way to help me educate my bookclub friends about lacemaking. I regretfully do not have a photo of her demonstrating…..I was too busy that night being a hostess: food, wine, welcoming my guests, as well as giving a verbal/visual tutorial about what is lace, lace types, etc.. I didn’t take the time to take photographs of Jennifer as she was demonstrating.

To my knowledge, I didn’t find any willing recruits wanting to learn a lacemaking or fiber art technique, at least I did try to educate about lace and lacemaking. In the past I used to take tatting and needlelace-making techniques into a ‘cross-stitch’ festival/teaching environment. It was again my attempt to sway ‘cross-stitchers’ into becoming ‘tatters’ or ‘lacemakers’. But I will have to tell you that despite my best efforts, I have come to realize that for the most part, one’s first hobby (reading in the book club group; cross-stitching in the needlework show group) is usually where they choose to stay.

The Lace Reader has a complex enough story line that even the most advanced readers of the book club were sufficiently amused. The victim of the book was a lacemaker who was also a ‘lace reader’. She would hold up a piece of lace in front of a person and read their ‘fortune’. I had never heard of a ‘lace reader’ even though I have been in/around the lacemaking world for a long time (several decades). I did some research on the internet and the only reference to such a thing kept coming back to this book. Thus I believe that the author make it up–a fictional thing for a fictional book.

The ShuttleSmith official website is back up & running

 My website: www.TheShuttleSmith.com is now back up and running!!!!

I'm not sure how long it has been down, but that is impertinent now.

I have many blog posts ready to publish in draft-form and will strive to periodically publish at least one per week.

I have chosen to keep my website going, in addition to this blogsite and FB page for TheShuttleSmith Tatting because I have ALOT of tatting related data archived on my website.

I've been told that my website format not very easy to use, but I'm not sure what I can do about that. I probably should hire a social media influencer, but am not sure how to go about that either.

For now, I think you will find that there is alot of information on my website if you only take the time to try to rummage throught it.