Tatted Inserts- How to & wisdom through the ages

Remember the time I tatted Norma’s card suit motifs? It’s ok if you don’t, I’ve linked the blog post about it here.  Last weekend I had my sewing machine out to do some mending. I decided to try attaching a tatted insert into a piece of material, in preparation for making the card cloth with the motifs. I love how in the older books the authors give quite thorough instructions to measure and sew the fabric for these effects. I used Norma Benporath’s instructions, as this is where the motif pattern was (I also used the TROVE pattern, but found some inconsistencies- so ended up back with the printed page in this book).Now, please remember here that I am not a person who usually sews. I can run straight stitches and can count on one hand the number of button holes I have made – so trying this technique of inserting the tatting into a cloth was an adventure! Also, I have used dark threads through out this practice so I (and you) could see exactly what was happening, how neat it would be and if I wanted to use coloured threads for the ‘real’ table cloth.

First, I needed a test piece of fabric, so a section of an old sheet worked well here.Second, I needed a motif to test this on. I used a motif I made a long time ago and never gave away.

Norma’s next instruction is to trace around the motif onto the fabric, and tack into place.

Now, at this point it took me a little while (30 mins) to figure out how to button hole on my machine. I also learned about width and tension of stitches….and think I may need a service for my machine 🙂 But, here we go…somewhat successful button holes. I also realised at around the 30 minute mark that I really just needed to go in one direction for this attachment, so I didn’t spend any longer fiddling with making an actual button hole.

I took a deep breath and used my new button hole technique to follow the outside of the motif and pencil line. It is a bit wobbly in places, but all bar 3 picots were caught in the thread. I think with white thread I wouldn’t have noticed the picots that didn’t catch as easily. Then I let out my deep breath 🙂  Here is what the back looked like, decidedly wobbly:

And a close up:

Norma’s next instruction was to cut away the back of the fabric, close to the sewn edge. ( I took for granted I didn’t want to cut through the motif 🙂 )Here is the cut back, you can see through the motif 🙂 A bit more fine cutting work:

And from the front it looks pretty good:So I felt pretty happy my first try looked pretty good, and that Norma’s instructions were very easy to follow. Now to the dilemma, here is one of the 2 black motifs for the card cloth. The others are red. The material I envisioned and have purchased is white. I am thinking I should match the thread for the joining to the colour of the motif, not the colour of the cloth. I wonder what you think?  As always,

Happy tatting

Fiona T

Norma’s ‘Tatting with two threads’ – test tat and diagram

I have been working on this ‘project’ for a while now, nearly 2 years! I had chosen to complete Norma Benporath’s design of “Tatting with Two Threads”, first published in The Queenslander on October 6th, 1937. The link to the original pattern is: http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article23591180, and you can download the text format of the long hand pattern in it’s original form.  Please don’t sell this pattern, as copyright for this work remains with the National Library of Australia, (original article can be accessed via http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page2524047).

The actual test tatting of this pattern was quite quick to do, but it has taken me a long time to diagram and “modernise” the pattern notation.  Recently I realised my major blocker was drawing the diagram, using illustrator – I completed 2 rounds, but was stalling on doing the third round (work and life in the way I’m afraid). While I hope to complete the diagram at some stage and add it to this pattern, it was a shame to delay the whole project because of this one aspect. So I decided to annotate the photo of my test tatted piece, as I have seen others do successfully recently. This was much, much quicker, and I am really pleased that the whole ‘modernised’ pattern (true to Norma’s original, just written in a more friendly notation for tatters today), in a PDF, is available for you to download.

This border for a doiley looks very effective, and would suit a beginner tatter. I think it could also be used as a collar, or a hem edge for a skirt or dress. It would also look lovely in variegated thread, or even beaded.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the online tatting design class – for teaching me how to use the design software, Wonderful Husband – for patiently showing me a few tricks and quirks of Illustrator, intatters – many people for bringing this project together, and TROVE (NLA) – for having wonderful access to public archives.

Tatting in two threads Norma Benporath Pattern PDF link (This will take you to a new webpage with a link to the PDF, click this link and the pattern should download. The picture on the PDF is very high resolution, and should zoom up quite well before becoming pixilated…much better than the picture above in this part of the blog. Hope that helps 🙂 )

This is my first ‘big’ attempt at a pattern, please let me know of any errors, or difficulties…and please share pictures of your attempts at this pattern and link them to TROVE also (© for this work remains with the National Library of Australia, original article can be accessed via http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page2524047)  – It would be wonderful if these beginner suited patterns were being used widely again.

Also, TIAS Fall 2013 is running at the moment. Day 8 is up and the blog is growing as more people catch up and complete each part. We still have NO idea what it is. If you are interested in joining in, it is never too late: http://tiaspence.blogspot.com.au – Thanks Sherry for putting this together – I am realising how much work it is to prepare 🙂    I’d better go and download Day 8.

As always, Happy Tatting

Fiona T

Norma’s Card Table Cloth

I have long liked this pattern and idea of Norma Benporath, to include tatted motifs of the card suits in a table cloth (in “Every Woman’s complete guide to tatting illustrated”). When I first saw the pattern when I got this book I thought it would be nice to have the ‘correct’ colours for the card suits and inlay them into a cloth. I knew I wouldn’t have the patience to complete the border as designed here, so was happy to just have the card motifs in a smaller table cloth.

Recently Jon test tatted the same motifs from the TROVE site. Her great efforts can be seen here.  The link to the TROVE pattern is here.  This reminded me about them again. I was between projects so loaded up a shuttle with red thread, fired up the i-Pad and followed the links from Jon’s blog to the TROVE pattern. As with any pattern that is new to me, it took several reads and a bit of retro tatting, when what I expected wasn’t the way Norma had written it.  After an hour or so I realised how many times I was checking the i-Pad, and trying to scroll the pattern on this digital interface was getting annoying, so I put it down for the night.

The next night I got my Norma book (above) out of my tatting cupboard and sat down again to continue the Heart motif. It was then I noticed something interesting…the stitch counts are slightly different for some sections. I can only guess that copyright for the newspaper articles didn’t transfer to the book easily, so patterns were slightly adapted to accommodate this. I found this fascinating and have cross checked the patterns for all motifs in this piece. There are variations, often 3ds is changed to 4ds, and picot counts are the same. I wonder if anyone else has found this with other patterns between TROVE and any printed copies you may have?

I hope to finish these motifs this week and have found fabric in my stash to make the cloth with. One of the things I like about the vintage tatting books is they give quite clear measurements and directions to guide the cutting of fabric to give the best visual results…takes out the guesswork for a novice sewer like me 🙂 It will probably take a few weeks to find the time to unpack the sewing machine…but I hope to have this project completed in the near future and will show you all the finished results 🙂

Next week’s blog is about my Royal Melbourne Show Entry for this year, with images of the entry components and descriptions of each piece.

See you then

Happy crafting

Fiona T

Tatted Challenge Part 2

In the last 2 weeks I have managed to complete the third round of the doily I am working out from a picture, see posts here, and here for background information.

Here is a picture of the third round:I am quite pleased with how it is progressing. I still haven’t quite worked out which flowers will give the best spacing, and am trying some from a few different books to see what works best. I would like the center of the flower to be a different colour to the petals, and so far the Lynn Morton flower pattern like I used in this doily seem to look the best, but I only do the first 2 rounds and have modified the numbers of picots and chains to emulate the 5 petal flower in the doily I am re-creating. I will keep experimenting.

This week I also took my show entry for the ‘royal melbourne show’ in to be judged. The results will be published next Saturday and I hope to get to the show on Sunday to see all of the other wonderful entries. There were more entries in the tatting section this year than previous years, and it is great to see an increase of entries in this category. I will publish pictures of my entry in my next blog, I am quite proud of how my vision for this piece came together in the last few weeks (thanks to some of my students for their help too).

It was also great to here through intatters some movement on the ‘Norma Benporath Trove’ project. We are able to create and share visual diagrams of the old patterns on this site, and link them back to the Trove site. I am eager to make a visual diagram of the piece I test tatted last January, but wont have time until later this year to look at doing this, so hope someone else doesn’t beat me to it :D. Here is a link to Jon’s blog, as she has been working through test tatting many of the patterns and showing them on her blog,  and is also the one who has found out how we can share the visual diagrams with a wider community, thanks Jon for sharing and the wonderful work you are doing.

We are heading towards 75 likers on the facebook page, so I am stocking up for the next craft  random giveaway (all likers, old and new are in the draw). I am also planning a different type of giveaway when we reach 100 likers on facebook…so stay tuned for that one.

Thanks to all for your comments, emails and encouragement.

Until next time, happy tatting,

Fiona T

 

Tatting poem from 1889….another treasure from Trove.

Here is a link to a lovely little poem from 1889, about a girl whose tatting is described as entrancing and magical. So much so that she will snare a ‘human heart’….ahhh tatting is a wonderful art.

via 02 Mar 1889 – Tatting..

I especially like the lines “Her delicate fingers deftly wrought , A pattern as fine as a fairy’s thought,” ….really gives the image of beautiful lacework.  I wonder if there are many other poems about tatting? Something to keep an eye out for I think.

 

As always,

Happy tatting

Fiona T

TROVE and TIAS: Two Tatting Projects brought to you by the letter ‘T’

I may not have been blogging much the last few weeks, but I have been busy tatting and working. I also got an offer for my study in the PhD program, so have been excitedly enrolling also. You can read more about my studies in my other blog: My Paperless PhD.

So what has been keeping my occupied in tatting? First TROVE, which I have written about before. I have been plugging away at editing patterns and decided I would print off the PDF and text version and try one of the patterns myself. Another Tatter, Jon, is also doing this and blogging about it. I am so enjoying seeing these older patterns in vibrant colours I was a bit inspired by her . I only found one error in the pattern, a missing picot. Here is the link:   Tatting with two threads http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/23591180  The pattern for the third round is in a different text box on the same page, click on comments once you get to the right TROVE page, we have explained how to find it to print.

And here is a picture of the test tatting. It is really pretty! It was a beginner pattern, so was quite easy. I used some beautiful lisbeth 40 thread, and have resolved to buy more colours because it is just so smooth.

The other fun project that has just begun is TIAS (tatt it and see) from Jane Eborall. The idea is that part of the pattern is released every few days and you ‘tatt along’ and try to guess what will be tatted. Jane is also kind enough to spend most of the day checking her email for photos of each stage of our work, then she adds them to the TIAS blog. I am enjoying seeing everyone’s work, thread colours and shuttles. There are such lovely shuttles out there…I have ordered a few more aero shuttles (thanks Crochet Australia for the special order) and am going to try and ‘pretty’ them up.

There is still time to jump in and try this, as we are only up to day 3 of the pattern. I managed to muck up my one last night, I should have known my brain was tired, and I flipped the stitches on my SCMR (self-closing mock ring) instead of leaving them unflipped…so got a bit of a tangled mess. I will re-tatt the whole piece today and get back on track. I did learn, however, to make ‘faux picots’ and these looked good.

Here are my pictures from my first 3 days:

Oh, and you can see my lovely new shuttle, from emsy-jane on ETSY….I have already ordered another one. I only miss the hook a little bit, but most of my projects now use at least 2 shuttles, so I will just use the hook on another shuttle when needed.

Happy Tatting!

Fiona T

 

Tatting treasure found @TROVE

During a leisurely blog hop I came across this, Tat-a-Renda: Tatting Treasures Unearthed., which I read out of interest at finding Jon’s blog finally (not that it was lost…I just hadn’t seen it yet, but know of Jon via intatters and the online tatting design course I am lucky to be a part of). She was talking about TROVE, an Australian Library Archive, and a wonderful source of information including old newspapers from 1800’s onwards. I had used this site earlier this year to search out some family history information and was addicted to it for weeks, searching and reading articles late into the night.

One of the clever ladies at intatters had found a ‘tatting treasure’ of old tatting patterns, written mostly by Australian Tatting Legend, Norma Benporath. I have a couple of her compilation books in my collection and was very excited to see this list of her work on TROVE. http://trove.nla.gov.au/list?id=1660

Reading on in Jon’s blog, some of the ‘intatters’ crowd are now working through these patterns and correcting the typos (all docuents on TROVE are scanned images and use OCR to generate text versions, which leads to some errors and incorrect characters). So I have just signed up properly to TROVE and have edited 2 patterns…hopefully mostly correctly. Jon has kindly offered to test some of the patterns and has put up a picture of the first finished piece. So very exciting!

This has also prompted me to look closely at my tatting book collection. I have realised that aside from the books post 1980’s there are very few with credit to the women (or men) who came up with the patterns and worked the designs. The book I often refer to as ‘Rita Weiss’ is, in fact, only edited by her and is a collection of patterns from a by-gone era. In my collection there were only 2 people with their names on the books, given credit for their hard work. These were by Norma Benporath and Marjorie Willis (NZ Lady)…amazing stuff. I find it interesting how much and how quickly times are changing to give credit where it is due to those who labour over their craft and contribute so freely. Thanks, it is wonderful to be a part of this generous community.

As always, Happy Tatting!

Fiona T