I have had the pleasure recently of attending a wonderful weekend at the Palmettos Annual Tat Days 2012. This was their 10th anniversary and every year it gets bigger and better. I have attended as a student of tatting and as a teacher. Their cast of teachers is international and they bring something fresh to every class. The students, too, come from many countries. This year over 115 attended classes taught by 13 tatting teachers (including me.)

The classes are always fun and challenging. From 3-dimensional tatting as in the acorn by Kaye Judt,		to the whimsical fairy in inverted tatting by Martha Ess,
on to split rings, self-closing mock rings, long beaded picots and the lock chain by Jane Eborall,		and Erin Holloway's "Dinky the Cat" which employed hidden rings, encapsulation, alligator joins, and joining beads outside and within rings,

One of the perks from attending Tat Days (here at Palmettos but also at all tatting events) is the goodie bag. Throughout the year the group members and guilds work together to create some hostess type gifts to use as welcome presents for students and as thank you gifts for teachers. Most of these gift items are easy to prepare but represent a lot of planning, preparation and thoughtfulness. You might like to take note of some of these lovely goodies to use for gifts yourself. This year I received a number of items that were colored coordinated. You can easily guess that purple is my favorite color.