Knitch Magazine

A box of chocolates inspired this tatted piece.With the growing interest in knitting, we are now witnessing renewed interest in other traditional fiber arts. One of the lesser known crafts is tatting. It's the creation of a very durable, sturdy lace that is often used to make edgings and decorative pieces. Basically, it's the art of knot-tying to form patterns of rings and chains.

When you say the word "tatting" most people will immediately conjure up imagines of doilies, like the ones that Grandma used to have on her tables and arm rests. While these are fine examples, they hardly do justice to the intricate creations modern tatters love to design: pretty snowflakes, lacy bookmarks, romantic necklaces and earrings. Some are also clever enough to create beautiful three-dimensional pieces.

Sharon Briggs, a tatter from just outside of Toronto, Ontario explains why we're seeing a resurgence in this traditional craft. "Tatting is regaining popularity because it's so portable, it's easy to learn, and because the Internet makes learning and sharing information so much faster and easier."

On her blog, Sharon's Tatted Lace, the fiber artist offers many informative tutorials to help others learn the craft.

Tatters create snowflakes for holiday decorations.Tatted booties make a pretty, traditional baby gift.Despite its' growing popularity, she tells us, "It isn't popular enough to sell magazines. Some publications will do a periodic article on tatting, but often the magazines exist to promote the materials consumed in their production. Tatting works up at a rate of about one inch of fine lace per hour, so you don't go through a lot of fiber."

It seems that one of the advantages of tatting makes it less appealing to marketers who support publications: it doesn't require consumers to make expensive purchases.

The origins of tatting are somewhat sketchy, and searching its roots is made even more complex because it's known by so many different names.

"It's called Tatting in English," Sharon says, "Occhi in Italian, Schiffchenspitze in German, and Frivolite in French."

Donna Kelly, a tatter in Florida, was happy to share with us what she knows of its history.

Tatting shuttles can be very decorative."The origin of tatting goes back to 2000 years when fishermen used a large shuttle to make nets to catch the fish," she tells us. "Sailors knew how to tie different kinds of knots. Somehow the methods of netting and tying knots developed into tatting."

Donna explains how the art made its way to North America.

"The Irish nuns of Cork County, Ireland were tatting behind closed doors. In 1845, the potato crop failed causing the poor people to eat grass. These nuns sold their beautiful lace of tatting, crochet and knitting, and gave the money to the poor people to buy food. When the Irish girls came to America, they sold their tatting for pin money."

Donna, a retired music and kindergarten teacher, has been practicing the craft for 40 years. She enjoys creating earrings, baby booties, and designs on cloth.

"I learned as a young girl on my first teaching assignment," she says. "A second grade teacher invited me to her house to see her Pomeranian dog. On the night stand was a shuttle and a beautiful handkerchief with tatting around the edge. She said she had tried to teach many ladies and her husband, but they couldn't grasp it. I was lucky and learned to make the slip stitch."

Donna was inspired by a pretty bit of edging, which is one of the more popular uses of tatted lace.

This is an exceptional piece of tatting. Tatters can be very creative."Some tatters embellish crazy quilts," says Sharon, "or scatter them across knitted scarves. They edge wee socks for little people, make masquerade masks, add beads and make pendants, earrings, bracelets, anklets or appliqué butterflies, hearts or flowers on shirts, jeans, coats, or pretty much anything that will sit still long enough to have tatting added!"

One very creative tatter made this amazing bat to enter into a contest. The judges must have been incredibly impressed by her imagination and skill. Who would have thought you create such a beautifully constructed sculpture using only cotton thread?

"In the past," Sharon tells us, "tatting used only thread that was size 40 or finer. Size 80 is about sewing thread size and used to be labeled tatting cotton. Now we use coarser threads like 10, 20 and 30."

As for colors, it's becoming more difficult for tatters to find the fibers they want in a variety of colors. "Like the magazines, the thread companies go where the money is, so they've stopped producing such a wide variety of colors. This has led to a whole cottage industry growing up around the need for lovely hand dyed thread colors. We call them HDT and a lot of the vendors sell them on Etsy with charming names like Rainbow Bright and Threadbeard."

Once you've got the materials figured out -- which seems pretty simple -- there are two types of tatting to choose from: traditional and needle. With traditional shuttle tatting you manipulate the thread so that a knot formed with the tatting shuttle transfers to the thread held around your hand. At first, it can be a bit tricky to get both hands co-ordinated as you contort them into unfamiliar positions.

Donna Kelly displays some of her tatting.Needle tatting is a slightly newer invention that's similar to casting on -- Knit 1, Purl 1 -- onto a needle that has an eye. Then you pull the needle through the stitches. You can either loop the thread so that when you pull the needle through the stitches a ring is formed, or you can run the needle through where you started the stitches and then do an overhand knot.

There are a lot of different tatting patterns available once you've mastered your technique -- ranging from decorative household items to really pretty jewelry. There's even an online challenge for tatters to create 25 new pieces a year. Some of the designs they develop are amazingly creative and unbelievably intricate.

If you'd like to learn how to tat, you may be able to find lessons locally, or you can visit Sharon's blog for a quick lesson.