In tough economic times, we often face the choice of giving up certain pleasures in order to be certain of the necessities of life. A tatter will not need to face this hard choice. Our tools are inexpensive scissors, crochet hooks, and shuttles. Shuttles which we can even cut ourselves from plastic or cardboard. Flat shuttles can be made from twigs and old clothes pins or even bent paper clips in the last resort.

The second most costly expense is the thread. However, we get hundreds of yards of thread on each ball and it gives us hundred of hours of tatting pleasure. It enables us to make wonderful gifts for all occasions. The bright colors and varieties of thread available bring joy to the recipient and the tatter. And for pennies.

The most costly expense is, of course, buying tatting patterns books. The market produces wonderful books for tatters. Patterns with color photos, diagrams, illustrations, tutorials so that the language does not detract. But tough economic times it is hard to justify "another" tatting book.

And this brings me to the point I want to share today. Thanks to the many online resources for tatters, there is more than enough patterns posted online for free download. Enough to keep a tatter busy their whole life.

Here at BellaOnline.com you have hundreds of links to patterns available. This section includes links to pages where you can download many public domain free tatting books. Most of these are important volumes which you should include in your library. Let's take a look.



Free Tatting Books Online = http://www.bellaonline.com/subjects/3137.asp



A few names that you might recognize are Anne Orr, Butterick, Mlle Riego, Mrs. Cornelia Mee and Miss Austin. Have you heard of Mrs. Beeton or Sophie T LaCroix, a survivor of the Titanic sinking? What about Needlecraft Magazine, the Delineator, or the Modern Priscilla. There is so many tatting at your finger tips and all for free.