In winter I long for the sunny skies of summer but now that the simmering days of summer are here I can only long for the cool days. It is easy in winter to fight off the grey skies and cold by bringing out the brightest and boldest tatting thread I can find. The rattle of beads on my tray as I sort them masks the rattling of the door by the relentless wind. Happily I tat away the days.
And I dream of summer days on the porch tatting while watching the birds at the feeder. I look forward to seeing my lazy cats chase butterflies instead of my shuttles. But the reality of summer is much different.
Even with the air conditioning (for which I am most grateful) and a fan going sometimes just the thought of holding thread in my hands makes me go all dewy. (Dewy is a polite term for sweating.) But I have found a compromise! I turn to the vintage tatting books and enjoy an hour or two reading, sipping iced tea and planning my next batch of UFO's. (UFO = unfinished object.)
I have listed many of the vintage tatting books from which I often find inspiration here in the tatting pages of BellaOnline.com:
http://www.bellaonline.com/subjects/6778.asp
The 1896 Butterick Flower.
This flower is all rings and easily done. It makes a great decoration for wearables and crazy quilting. And it is a good exercise in hiding a tail in a split ring.
"Forty Original Designs in Tatting By Nellie Hall Youngburg, Novel and Unique Designs"...Brookings, SD © 1921. Many of the patterns in the fun book are listed here also.
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art183837.asp
And some of my very favorite sources of inspiration are the works of Emmy Liebert, Priscilla, Mlle Riego and Frau Tina Frauberger. Check them out soon.
http://www.bellaonline.com/subjects/3137.asp
And there are so many more!
A few names that you might recognize are Anne Orr, Norma Benporath, Mrs. Cornelia Mee and Miss Austin. Have you heard of Mrs. Beeton or Sophie T LaCroix? What about Needlecraft Magazine, the Delineator, or the Modern Priscilla magazines. There is so many tatting at your fingertips and all for free.
So, whether (pun intended) you are fighting the cold or the heat, tatting is there for you!
Here's the latest article from the Tatting site at BellaOnline.com.
Tatting as Meditation Tatting is a great way to reduce the noise and stress from the everyday world which impinge on our senses every day all day.
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art301352.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
Correction: I think a name was left out of this article. Sophie LaCroix was not on the Titanic (I double-checked the passenger list on www.encyclopedia-titanica.com). Lady Duff-Gordon (full name: Lucy Christiana Sutherland Wallace Duff-Gordon) was a Titanic survivor. While she endorsed the book of tatting patterns, she never mentioned in her autobiography, Discretions and Indiscretions (which I had to get through an inter-library loan from Texas), that she actually tatted . Still, as multi-talented as she was, I feel quite confident that she knew how to wield a shuttle. Anitra Stone
