Many people have trouble with drawing shapes but there are a number of tools you can make for yourself when necessary. Of course it's nice to have a set of wooden picot gauges but they do cost money and often commercially made tools such as tatting gauges may not quite be as flexible as you would like and may not have the size of gauge you want to use.

The first tool any tatter should make is a set of picot gauges. I used a piece of template plastic designed for making patchwork templates to make mine. I used a ruler and pencil to measure a strip three inches wide, and then divided that into narrow strips ranging from 1/8 inch wide by 3 inches long right up to 2 inches wide by 3 inches long, in 1/8 inch increments. I then punched a hole using a tapestry needle at one end of each gauge and joined them together with a length of crochet cotton so that I would never lose any of my gauges. If the man in your life has a 1/16 inch hole punch in his tool box that will also be ideal for making the holes in the gauges. If you prefer, gauges can be made in mm measurements instead. However, you should be consistent whether inches or centimetres, and write on each gauge what size it is otherwise you'll forget.

Another type of gauge is the Stepped Gauge. The measuring levels are marked out in the form of steps on the plastic and then the template is cut out.

If you can't obtain the template plastic any plastic bottle or box cover will do provided it is reasonably firm and not in the form of plastic wrapping film.

I do not recommend using card as this can wear out easily and if used a lot within one piece the card may change its width as it wears with use.

Cluny lovers can make their own gauge. Cut a rectangle of card, about 3 inches wide and four inches high. Cut out a couple of notches at the bottom to create a tongue for holding the base of the cluny and at the other end of the card make a number of notches sticking out depending on how many wraps you want your cluny to have. It need not just have the usual three weaving strands, Judi Banashek developed clunies which can have as many as nine wraps per cluny.

Beadworkers you are not left out. Go to your florist and buy a pack of florist's wire. This can be used, folded in half, to thread your beads onto a picot or onto your thread before you wind your shuttles, instead of using a crochet hook or tapestry needle.

Save small boxes and tins, I have a number of small cosmetic bags that my mother received as the containers for special offers of cosmetics when she purchased her favourite brand, and these are ideal for carrying tatting around safely. At Christmas time a well known British store had chocolate boxes beautifully made up and covered in fabric, and another well known British store sells wooden boxes of chocolates (at a very high price I might add) with chrome clasps. Always be on the lookout for that sort of thing. All the better if someone buys it for you as happened to me with the wooden box!

I'm sure you can think of plenty of other things you can do to save money so that it can be used on other things on which you would rather spend it!