Revamping My Earlier Design

Some folks familiar with my Tatted Jewelry book published in 2011 by Annie's Attic may see similar design elements to the "Newcastle" necklace in those pages. Well, 10 years have gone by, and I think I can do better. ☺ So, this week I came up with what you see here.

I like it as a high collar or choker necklace, but it's too wide to wear lower on the neck. I'm thinking that with some more changes a smaller variation could be made for a pendant style necklace. If that is successful, then I'd write up both versions to put into one pattern.

Not sure what to call the new pattern, but probably something to do with wings or flight.

Blue hand painted shuttle by Rita Richmond of Shuttle by Design
looking good with blue thread!

A Way To Sew Tail Ends In Tatting

 

In response to inquiries about sewing ends into tatting, I made this video. This method isn't my invention, but simply my demonstration of the process.

I'm happy that the new Craftsy website has now put both of my tatting classes into the "jewelry" category. I think that's a much better fit than the previous "crochet" category. After all, tatting is a very different technique than crochet.

I'm having fun making some basic tatting lesson videos on TikTok. Quite the challenge since each "lesson" has to be one minute or less. My goal is simply to show people enough to get them interested. With that, they'll have the motivation to search online for more information on tatting. From the responses I've been getting, it's apparent that many people had either never heard of tatting, or didn't realize there was loads of tatting info and patterns online.

Tatting is on TikTok

There are several tatters already posting on the smartphone app "TikTok" and I've been on it about 5 weeks now. What it's all about is short videos, 60 seconds or less. The format is vertical, which is a bit of a challenge since tatting movements are mostly horizontal, but it works. The 27 seconds video I posted on January 15 went "viral" - by tatting standards, anyway. ♥☺ At the time of this writing it has received over 11 thousand views, 2400 likes, and over 200 comments. 

The comments are of the same kind we've all heard before: "So beautiful", "My grandmother tatted", "How long does that take?", "I thought that was crochet", "What magic is this?" "That's a lost art", etc. Also much interest in learning how to tat. So, a new audience eager to learn tatting.

The project I demonstrated in the video is my remake of a vintage pattern 
found in the book "The Tatter's Treasure Chest".

I found the original pattern rather hard to decipher, so I tatted a practice piece first, to see how it all fit together. Following that, I decided where to adjust the stitch count, where I wanted to place beads and eliminated some decorative picots that might get messy by wearing as a necklace. I had some trouble with the large bead inside a tatted ring, so that got turned that into an "opening a closed ring" demo.

Such fun!