Once upon a time in New England, a tatter created tatting designs. She used that new-fangled machine called a "typewriter" to record them on lined paper. And she saved them all in a 2-hole notebook. Next to the patterns she securely sewed down samples of the tatted lace. And written small at the side of many of them, she placed prices, some as little as 35 cents a yard.

It sounds a little sad at first, this book of patterns with prices. Did she have to labor over the lace hour after hour for those precious pennies? Perhaps. But if so, she tatted with a cheerful heart. How can you tell? By the rainbow of colors that flow through her tatted samples! No simple white. No creamy ecru. Her tatting shouted with joy and cavorted in cornflower blue, hyacinth purples, meadow greens and carnation pinks.

The patterns were tatted in the traditional tatting style of rings being front side up and the chains being back side up. A small change in the order of the half stitches on the chains would make this a modern pattern. Most of the elements were joined using the traditional "up join." Here, too a change to the modern "down join" will give any of these pieces the all front side up look. And, of course, the patterns were written with the instructions to cut and tie after most rounds. All those thread ends can be avoided today by using the split ring, split chain and mock picot to climb from center our or from row to row without cutting the thread.