Season's Greetings to Tatters Everywhere!

My family and I were finishing our holiday shopping this last week when I overheard a small group of "gentlemen" grousing about having to wait "forever" for someone to finish shopping. It made me remember these snippets from old time newspapers about men and tatting. I hope you will get a smile from them, too.

Dec. 25, 1916, The San Diego Union, page 4.
Chauffeurs Tatting.
While waiting for the owners of their cars on Broadway the other day two chauffeurs sat in the back seat of one machine tatting. One was making a present for his wife and the other for a girl who he hoped will soon be his wife.
"This tatting is a wonderful way to pass time," said one of the chauffeurs. "As we have to do so much waiting in the shopping districts, one of the men thought tatting would be a good way to spend the time. So his wife taught him, and he taught me, and I taught my friend here and he taught someone else, and now everyone is doing it!"

{Ed's note: Why not teach the man of your life to tat?}

Aug. 13, 1915, The Oregonian.
Albany Barber Does Tatting.
A man who does tatting for a pastime is a rarity here, but Mr. C. M. Smith, a local barber, does. Whenever he has some spare time at the shop he takes up his tatting shuttle and goes to work. He has made several very pretty pieces. Smith says he took a fancy to that kind of work and learned the art of tatting from books.

{Ed's note: I wonder how many men he may have taught to tat?}

Oct. 17, 1943, The Morning Star, page 17.
Navy Man Teaches Tatting
(Portsmouth, NH) Pharmacist's Mate Dennis N Harris of Fort Smith, AR, spends his spare time at the USO headquarters here - and his specialty is tatting. He says he learned the art from his mother when he was 10 years old.

{Ed's note: It is not unusual for a naval man to enjoy knotting, so why not tatting?}

Sept. 3, 1915, The Morning Olympian.
200-Pound Fat Man Makes Fun for Girls in Statehouse by Tatting
Tatting, tatting, patiently tatting, his fingers deftly working thread and shuttle, sat a 200-pound man in an automobile which stood for half an hour or so in the street by the state house yesterday. While he made time count, he made fun for the young women who work in Insurance Commissioner Fishback's office. As he tatted, they "typed" unable, however, to refrain from looking every so often to see how their unknown friend was progressing. But try as they could, they did not learn what he was making, and none dared to go and find out.

{Ed's note: Although this article is politically incorrect today, it is not unusual for "big" guys to tat. Amongst our numbers online we have civil engineers, shepherds, heart surgeons, judges, forest rangers, accountants, ob/gyn doctors and technicians. What amazes me more is the fact that the "girls" were too timid to go see what was happening!}

Teach a man to tat for the holidays and it will be a lifelong gift.

Here's the latest article from the Tatting site at BellaOnline.com.

Planning for the End...
Tatters all strive to find ways that are simple to do but effectively hide the tail. Try these.

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art29954.asp

Please visit tatting.bellaonline.com for even more great content about Tatting.

To participate in free, fun online discussions, this site has a community forum all about Tatting located here -

http://forums.bellaonline.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=postlist&Board=39

I hope to hear from you sometime soon, either in the forum or in response to this email message. I thrive on your feedback!

Have fun passing this message along to family and friends, because we all love free knowledge!

Georgia Seitz, Tatting Editor
http://tatting.bellaonline.com

One of hundreds of sites at BellaOnline.com