A while back I was gifted by a cousin-in-law with this antique abalone tatting shuttle. My CIL is a professional jeweler in Iowa City, Iowa (She is my idol–I want to be a jeweler when I grow up!) When I pressed her about where this shuttle came from she said that it was in the jewelry shop’s storage items from estate purchases and buying out other jewelry stores stock. She could not shed any more light on the provenance of this beauty.

I was really intrigued by the fact that it was still attached to the original packaging material. I’m assuming that the missing portion of the cardboard base was where the price of the shuttle was. I’m bummed that this historical detail is missing.

The other unique thing about this abalone tatting shuttle is the fact that is includes a steel point/pick that is attached/riveted to the back blade of the shuttle.

After going on the first ever Tat Sea 2022 Tatting Cruise, I (and I think everyone else) was inspired by one of the cruise-goer’s beautiful tatted/beaded necklaces and earrings.  I will have to profess that I hate working with beads (especially on my shuttle thread) but now really want some tatted, glizty jewelry.  

I think this might be the thread for me.  It tats up quite well.  You have to be a bit careful when making joins that you grab all of the thread and not just a portion to bring up through the picot join as it easily splits.  But even though I tat quite tightly (stitch & ring tension), the rings closed quite nicely for me.

I found this thread in a quilt shop in Grand Junction, CO.

I need to go back and buy the silver and gold ones.

I found these ‘Magic Pins’ in a quilt shop here in my new hometown of Grand Junction, Colorado.  I am very hopeful that they will help prevent the hurts my right hand, middle finger gets when pushing in regular pins to a cardboard base to block my tatting.  Last time I blocked about a dozen pieces and my finger hurt for over a week. My husband forbade me showing off my owwie to everyone (it was my middle finger!). Sometimes I wear a thimble when pushing in pins to block my tatting. But it seems that the thimble impedes my progress a bit, especially when using a large number of pins.

Then I went to the Quilt Show here in Grand Junction, CO and found these ‘Pretty Pins’. I think that these later pins might be kinder to my finger than the ‘Magic Pins’. But the heads may get in the way of one another if the piece I’m blocking needs a whole bunch of pins close together.

I was at Walmart the other day and noticed these tweezers. The ‘Point Tweezers’ would work great for opening-closed-rings. I have no use for the ‘slant’ ones in my work. I didn’t buy them because I already have tweezers in my tatting bag that I love and use (all too frequently) for repairing a mistake. (I shall have to take a pictures of the tweezers I use for a future entry.)

Although this information does NOT relate to tatting, I thought it was such an exciting resource for bobbin lacemaking that I thought it need to be shared. (We are all sisters in the lacemaking world!)

This was posted in a post on ‘lace@arachne.com’ a very old list serve resource that I have been a part of for several decades. It is about a 3 year long bobbin lace project between 6 different countries. The project was named BOBBIN LACEE (“Building Opportunities with boBBins to Innovate the Network of Lace Associations Creating Education and Employment”). They have a website with ‘Learning Materials’ in English that is a treasure trove of techniques, history and collaboration.

The following is what was posted by one of the collaborators.

“Finally I can share with you the work that we have been doing during athree year long European project. I have been so busy, that I can’tremember if I ever told you about it! Sorry if I didn’t!As a resume: 6 European countries have participated in this very demanding project: Germany, Austria, Italy, France, Czech Republic and Spain. I belong to the Spanish staff team. Each country needed to create a group of 5 teachers and 35 learners to be able to teach them in their own country the type of lace they decided to choose. Each country also had to learn and to teach their learners the laces from the other 5 countries. Each country had to prepare a teaching workbook, which is now available for anybody whois interested. Do not hesitate in having a look at the material the 6 countries have prepared (you can find it in our webpage: https://bobbinlacee.eu/ under “Learning material”. It is also downloadable, if you are interested) and read the resumes of every transnational meeting. The project also included travelling to the partner countries to learn their methods, but unfortunately, we could only enjoy of half of the programmed trips. The rest had to be taught online to a very numerous group (around 60 people)., which was a great challenge, as there was no previous experience in this type of teaching. Language barriers were also enormous,as most lacemakers of the participating countries did not speak English, which was our common communicating language. So, please enjoy surfing our webpage, which will only be available untilthe end of the summer 2022. Greetings from Antje González, in Spain”

https://bobbinlacee.eu/

I now have 3 Tatting Shuttle Display items posted for sale on my Etsy shop: https://www.etsy.com/shop/TheShuttleSmith?ref=hdr_shop_menu.

I have been sorting through all my stuff, getting ready for a move from a big house (lots of space/storage) in Iowa to a smaller house (half the space) in Colorado. In the process, I found two more cases that would be great to display a tatting shuttle collection (or anything else small). I purchased the two ‘Glass-Brass-Mirror’ Display cases in Mexico in the early 80’s. I had used them to display baby items in my nursery when my kids were born (27-31 years ago). It wasn’t until just now when I pulled them out of the attic that I realized they would have been perfect for my tatting shuttle collection and other fiber-art treasures. (I recently purchased a big stand-alone display case that I am anxious to move to my new house and get set up!!).

These glass/mirror items are hard to photograph!

The Tatting Corner shop in Indiana is hosting the first ever TATTING Cruise this coming March, 2022.

The prices are quite reasonable starting at $904.74 (double accupancy). That is includes 8 nights of ‘lodging’ and 7 full days of either exploring Caribbean ports or tatting workshops. The 3 days of Tat Sea Tatting Workshops are only on days that the ship is not in a port called ‘at sea days’. What a great way to fill in the time by learning new tatting techniques or patterns. I understand that we may also have access to a room in the evenings to ‘hang-out’ and tat with each other. The cost of the workshops is included with the cruise and I believe that all thread is supplied in a kit. When you consider that all lodging and food is included in the cost, a cruise is a very cost-effective way to travel–about $114 a day. Plus, you can pay for the cruise in monthly installments, thus you don’t have to come up with all the money at one time.

I’m going and teaching!!!! Please do consider coming!! It is going to be sooooooo much fun.

To register, follow the link at the bottom of this post or go to https://tattingcorner.com/index.php?main_page=page&id=14

Click the following link to register for the cruise: https://fs3.formsite.com/allpointstravel/TatSea2021/index.html

To see more information and another link to how/where to register go to: https://tattingcorner.com/index.php?main_page=page&id=14

I will be taking part as a vendor at the upcoming IOLI (International Organization of Lace) UnCon21 virtual convention.

I was supposed to be teaching at the real/physical convention that was going to be in Reno, Nevada, but it was canceled early in 2021 due to Covid concerns. That’s the bad news.

The good news—the IOLI committee/board did a fantastic job of organizing an ‘Un’ ‘Convention’ which is a virtual/Zoom approach to allowing lacemakers from around the world to ‘gather’, if not physically, but virtually via the computer. The UnCon21 is the last week of July.

There are over 600 participants registered. There are many classes (all full) with teachers from around the world. I myself am registered to attend a Teneriffe Lace class with Elizabeth Horta Corea from Brazil. Elizabeth is a big promoter of Teneriffe/Sol Lace and is teaching how to use ‘slotted looms’ to create the lace and then how to stitch/sew the motifs together to create the lace.

All throughout UnCon21, registered participants have the opportunity to ‘Zoom’ into many scheduled talks about lace topics. Every morning, there will be a museum tour of lace collections from museums around the world.

Another addition to UnCon21 is the ‘Virtual Vendor Hall’. I am participating as a virtual vendor and have a ‘Trunk Show’ on Tuesday, July 27, 6:30 to 7:30 PDT. During my trunk show I will show my wares: my Fun with Split Ring Tatting series of books (9 to this point) as well as my glass/enameled tatting shuttles and thread holders. I will also be debuting my latest/future direction of Teneriffe/Sol Lace Kits. I have some very cool future looms to launch in the future….but come by my Trunk Show to catch a sneak peak of what I’m doing.

All these activities are available free of charge to all IOLI members who have registered for the week-long UnCon21.

The above YouTube video was produced to help me participate in the UnCon21 Virtual Vendor Hall. I’m pretty happy with how it came out.