I am so pleased to publish my first newsletter for the Tatting site at BellaOnline.com. I am the editor-in-training for the Tatting site and still learning the trade. I welcome your suggestions and comments.

At the moment I have noticed broken links in the pattern files. I will be working to repair that section. Please let me know if your favorite link is missing or broken.

This time of year is a special one for tatters. We all work for hours on a piece of lace which will be gifted during the holidays. There is so much joy and excitement that goes with the season. It is truly a time to be thinking of others.

When the snow settles down for the winter and the tree and ornaments are all put away for another year, there is a lull while we contemplate the coming new year and the changes it might bring. This quiet time can be used by tatters to good effect.

There is a national organization called "Newborns in Need." This group embellishes clothes for babies in need. They also prepare burial layettes. Tatters may donate tatted lace to embellish these tiny outfits all year long.

An international project hosted by the Holocaust Museum is still in progress. They invite all to prepare a butterfly in any medium to donate. These butterflies will represent the lost children of the holocaust in a future exhibit at the museum. It is easy to imagine a ceiling filled with floating tatted butterflies. Please contact me if you need patterns. (No glitter; nothing edible, please.)

http://www.hmh.org/ed_butterfly1.shtml

Perhaps the premier tatting event of the year is the annual TAT DAYS sponsored by the Palmetto Tatters Guild. They offer classes in tatting by nationally and internationally known tatting designers. The next event will be held in Tococa, GA next to a 285-acre lack with hotel style rooms and one giant dining hall. And, the Guild offers scholarships to tatters to attend this annual tatting workshop. Each year they have a live and a silent auction to raise funds for the scholarship. Donations of tatting would be super.