Archived books online & Tat Days

There is an online resource besides the Antique Pattern Library that offers several vintage books about Lacemaking. It's at The Internet Archive and is also where you can find "the Wayback Machine" to find websites and pages that no longer exist. There are other books and videos too,that are about other subjects entirely. I did find a few publications that I'd not seen in the Antique Pattern Library, so far anyway.

This link is all tatting and it uses lots of the decorative braid from the era.

This one is more crochet than tatting but still a nice assembly.

I was browsing the Interweave Magazine site when I found that corrections to Piecework Magazine projects can be found at this link!

There's been lots of talk lately about lace days, such as I.O.L.I. (International Old Lacers, Inc.) who held their annual convention in Portland last week. There are two more specifically tatting-related events coming up too! Both have "Fall Into Tatting" as their theme though I think the Fringe Element Group always uses that logo. The Palmetto Tat Days are being held in Toccoa, GA on August 27-28th this year.

For our tatting friends in the northern part of the hemisphere (a good location for those in the east too) there is a Tat Day in Cambridge, Ontario on September 24-25th hosted by the Fringe Element Tatters! Actually, I think it's really nice of them to space them out like that. Go to both!

hmmmm...did you know that if you hit "enter" when you are in the "title" box that it publishes your post????

And now for the tatting.

What do you mean this isn't tatting?

Oh, oh...this is crocheted? Irish crochet? Well, what do you know? LOL! Well, we've all had our share of explaining which lace is which, but what I'm really trying to do here is inspire you. Can you see this piece tatted? It's one side of a hexagon bag in a Leisure Arts publication. I was a bit bamboozled about which color to use for the outside, considering ecru, white or a solid to match one of the colors in the flower. Why oh why did I not think of black???? I will do the second half with black and then, of course, I will need to crochet yet another one. I suspect I will like the black better. The nice thing is I can simply pull a thread and all the ecru will unravel, ready for use again.

Oh...you want to know what I meant by "inspire you"? Okay, just think of how easy this would be to convert to tatting. The center rosette is already available in many different patterns. I'm thinking of #3 in Lene Bjorn's snowflake book. Now for the outside, it might take a bit of trial and error to get the stitch count right but it's practically all chains and picots. You can change the crocheted clusters to clunies or even rings if you prefer.

This is crocheted in Lizbeth size 20 in jellybean and ecru.

Last night I was going through some old I.O.L.I. (International Old Lacers Inc.) newsletters (The Bulletin) and decided to tat a heart bookmark in the Summer 96-97 issue. It's designed by Ronna Robertson who was a member of I.O.L.I. chapter Appaloosa Lace Guild. (and current Treasurer for I.O.L.I.!)

If you saw how slick the current publications are compared to the old ones, you would be amazed. So I really wasn't all that upset with the errors in the pattern. It is all text with a photograph. It starts off with a clover which automatically tells you it probably has 3 picots (as does the photo) but the instructions left a picot and 4 ds out of the first ring! There were a few other typo errors and I ended up tatting one near the end which I didn't see until I had it finished. Even so, it's a lovely bookmark and very easy to tat. The thread is some I dyed and is probably the mystery size 30 3 ply cotton as it was a tad bit fuzzy.

This issue has an article about tatting with beads by Judy Banashek and includes a split ring beaded bracelet pattern by her. Bobbie Demmer also wrote a column about beads and tatting and there was a snowflake pattern by Patti Duff. There was a poinsettia bookmark pattern by Sue Lantzer. This is in addition to several bobbinlace and needlelace articles and patterns. I believe the annual membership to I.O.L.I. is around $30 unless it went up a bit and I know it's a little more for overseas but it's a wonderful organization. They have a fabulous library (which is administrated by Cathy Kozlowski, a member of my lace guild) for members who can borrow books on any kind of lace for up to three weeks. Many many many of our tatting designers have donated a copy of their books to the library so this is a great way to look them over if you are undecided about purchasing them. They also have a lending library of videos and DVD's that can be borrowed through a different process and administrator. There is a deposit involved which is returned when the audio materials are returned. Mark Myers, our favorite Tatman, is the website manager. The membership directory can help you find other lacemakers in your area or an area you are traveling to.

Well, this wasn't intended to be a promotion for I.O.L.I. but I do think it is a worthy organization and often wish I had the time and energy to be more involved in it. If you have the opportunity to look through some older Bulletins or even current issues, I urge you to do so! You might decide to join yourself or get your lace group chartered through them.

I'm working on the butterfly body bookmark again tonight. This one will probably end up being a bracelet but the directions are the same so it's a way to double check my revisions. I also installed my new Serif drawing software today but I don't expect to actually get into using it for awhile yet. I've arranged several vacation days to give me 4 day weekends and it will be one of those weekends that I'll devote to learning the system and then diagramming all my designs. I've found a website to host pdf files and intend to eventually move my updated patterns there. I find E-Snips hard to use and lacking in many areas but until I can update my patterns, I'll leave them there.

Wow...11:30 p.m. already! I took a very long nap this afternoon so I'm bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at the moment!