Blast From the Past!

Cleaning out my email folders, from June, 1999…..

I have a folder titled Bridge Festival. Investigating it, I see I had conversations with Mark (Tatman), Petal1, Kelly & Jill Krone, Rebecca, and Patski1102 about meeting at the Covered Bridge Festival that year. For some reason, I couldn't pull it together and we never met.

Five years later………I am so happy to have tatters close by to meet with. I'm so happy to have met at least Mark from the above group. I don't think I've met anyone else unless I didn't put a real name with a screen name.

When I met Tami at the weekend at the craft fair, I knew exactly how she felt about finding a tatter to talk to. LOL! She kept saying now she didn't feel crazy for loving this craft so much.

The internet has its blessings and the computer, in spite of the headaches it causes, is a wonderful tool of communication. I really wonder sometimes if it wasn't a key factor in bringing tatting back from the brink of death? How many of us struggled with learning the craft because there was no one around to teach us? How many examples of tatting did we have in front of us to inspire us? I think we are truly a unique group, to not only take up the art of tatting, but to continue with it and promote and develop new techniques and creations at a now mind-boggling pace.

Once, I used to pour through my collection of Workbaskets which I had originally for other crafts, mostly knitting and crochet, to find that one or two-pattern-per-month of tatting. There were one or two books on the market that were highly recommended, Rebecca Jones' for one, and even those had to be ordered for me to read. I didn't know about the I.O.L.I. library. I was just starting to use the internet. I don't think the local library even had a book only about tatting. Tatting was included in other needlecrafts, but not as a single book.

I was a single parent in a clerical job and still had 2 kids to support. Tatting was a cheap craft. A shuttle, which I'd had for years, and a ball of thread. I had tons of crochet thread. Of course, it didn't take long for me to find out the difference between GOOD tatting thread and common cotton crochet thread. And I hated the Boye metal shuttle I had so when I heard about David Reed Smith's shuttles, I scraped up the $17 or so that it cost me and ordered a small wooden one. I ordered some Cebelia from a Herrschner's catalog. I found a tortoise shuttle at the local St. Vincent DePaul's. I found online groups, Tat-chat and E-tatters, though E-tatters wasn't called that at first. I found online patterns. I started searching every 2nd hand shop and garage sale for old books and patterns. I discovered ebay and started "collecting" from there. My, how that cheap hobby grew!

A quick surfing check found some fairly new items:

Needle Tatting Two, an MSN group, has some great ideas on how to turn medallions into ornament covers as well as ideas on how to use other motifs and pieces to decorate for the Christmas holidays. There is a nice block tatted wreath there too.

Oh, just found this, a pineapple heart designed by Sherry Matthews! Wouldn't that make a lovely Christmas heart???? backed with a green Ice Crystals doily?....well, that might be too much tatting which takes away from each piece instead of making them stand out but something green would work. I know! Green beads! And then use the same pattern in February.

I worked on the bison last night, finally giving up on the translation and simply guessing at the diagram. So far, so good. I hope to find out Saturday what I was actually supposed to do.

My sister gave me a shuttle that she found in her sewing machine cabinet drawer tonight. LOL! It has pink variegated thread on it. A french ivory shuttle with little metal rivets. I think it is bigger than any of my other french ivory shuttles.

I forgot to tell my daughter Happy Veteran's Day. She served in the military - the Army.