Monday, June 25, 2012

(Re)Learning to Tat

 Those miserable scraps at left are the result of my learning to tat.....again. Actually, I'm almost pleased by this.


I have been curious about tatting since I was in high school. During my freshman year, we had a German exchange student, Karen Volker who was the buxom, sexy, blonde of the high school boy's dreams that year. She was a sophisticated 16 years old to my lowly 14 years. She had a German accent. She could act!  Woecakes and jealousy. She was the student aid in my first year German class. Poor girl must have been bored to TEARS! I don't think I ever had a real conversation with her all year. What I DO remember is that she started tatting during class. That got me fascinated. In German, the word for tatting is Schiffenarbeit. It means "boat work" and refers to the shuttle used.


I did learn how to make the basic tatting double stitch many years ago, probably as a college student. I never did much with tatting, though. I did buy some books, which are collecting dust in the basement. The problem is that classic, Victorian tatting patterns are just horrific. They are poorly written and the designs simply say "outdated, fussy". I simply could not find anything I wanted to make enough to bother.


Admittedly, I did not see the potential in tatting.  Next post will have more info.


1 comment:

bunnits said...

Haha! Good luck and more power to you! Your work looks great. I've tried both shuttle and needle tatting, but not with any great success. I think needle tatting would work for me, but I prefer the shuttle, just can't get it right.