I love going to tatting workshops!   You learn soooooo much.  Actually I haven’t been able to go to many tatting workshops in the last few years because I had kids still at home and needed to be there (mostly to protect the house from teenagers).  So going to The Tatting Corner Tatting Workshop in Indiana was quite a treat.

While there, one of the things that I learned 1. Made my heart skip a beat and then 2. gave me a sick feeling in my stomach for awhile.  What was this, you may ask????  Well,  as I was showing a group of tatters at the workshop my ‘Quilt-Inspired Split Ring Tatting’ designs, somone said “Oh, there is a new book just out on that”.  I learned that the concept for a series of new tatting designs that I have been formulating for over and year and have been physically designing furiously for the last several months had JUST BEEN PUBLISHED!!!  By this I mean that Handy Hands had just published a 16 oage booklet that featured 4-5 different “Quilt” designs in tatting designed by a tatter named Billie Heisler.  This publication was quite the hit at the workshop.  From what I could hear, there were 4 copies to be had, and they were all in hot demand.  I quickly contemplated my designs/books fate…..and decided that no matter what the other book designs looked like, ‘my’ designs were ‘my’ designs and that I had come up with them and had the right to publish them too since I had come up with them totally on my own.  I did get a chance to take a peek at the ‘other’ quilt-tatting book and realized that my approach to combining quilting and tatting was different!  YEAH!!!!  I am soooooo glad about that my work is so different.  I would hate to have people think that I copied/plaguerized  another person’s work.

I have about 4-5 different approaches to tatting designs and techniques of working that are inspired by quilt patterns!!!    In upcoming blog posts, I will attempt to introduce these variations to you.

Right now I am busy creating illustrated patterns for my “Patchwork Series”.  I am also tatting up a few of them, so that they are ready for viewing on the IOLI website in the coming new year.

My timeline for my Quilt-Inspired Tatting Book is because I will be teaching a course/class on it at the 2015 IOLI Convention in Iowa City, Iowa–in August.   So my goal is to have the book(s) ready/published by then.  I have to mentions book(s)–plural, because is looks like I may have enough material to fill 3 books at this time.  I have been having soo much fun studying quilt historical  blocks and then designing them into tatting–split ring tatting to be precise.

I will fill you in more on my Quilt-Inspired Tatting Book as I go along.