Craft Space near completion

 Spring in the mountains of Western North Carolina can be a busy time of year.  The countryside is coming to life with flowers, new lambs and gardens begging to be created.  Keeping up with it all can be a daunting task, but we are moving steadily along.  Evening hours are dedicated to making the Craft Space more tidy and with greater accessibility to supplies.  We are almost there!

The rack to the left holds my watercolor, mixed media and sketching papers on top along with alcohol and pigment inks, brushes and supplies to go along with these media.  There is a hanging storage on the left end of the rack that holds acrylic paints and sprays similar to this item available on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/TEMUORG-Hanging-Acrylic-Organizer-Supplies/dp/B0DKHLBHYW/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2HHV2TUT1KT03&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.CNDwu64TaUgOAwNEShFC2oEs1qYDR3pBpp6Ei2AU-HOTrG9IaVLf3j2pTIN7YiOSfxHStqRYCtSDJ7-FMeDEKtSML8Bdnm0SLljDAhVfUpclc4jtjcK5n3GPVvl-5PgI.NjiSES5Km2X_jc9O7Y2YPvvSGds7FKF2S8prFZ2wZd4&dib_tag=se&keywords=clear%2Bpoly%2Bover%2Bthe%2Bdoor%2Bhanging%2Bacrylic%2Bpaint%2Bstorage&nsdOptOutParam=true&qid=1775952451&sprefix=clear%2Bpoly%2Bover%2Bthe%2Bdoor%2Bhanging%2Bacrylic%2Bpaint%2Bstorage%2Caps%2C160&sr=8-1&th=1

Watercolor and oil paints are also on this rack along with giftwrap, tags, bags and papers as well as sewing supplies located on the lower shelves.  

The next rack has beading supplies mostly but also some items that rather form a transition to the rack that is along the side of the next wall.  This space is dedicated to tatting on the upper shelves and paper crafting on the lower shelves  The large carrying case with the pink top has more beading items including findings that merge tatting with jewelry making.  

Across the room is this:

The lateral file holds my tatting books and reference materials.  The desk over it has a tempered glass top which eliminates any need for a glass mat for applying inks when I am paper crafting and the cutting mat has a grid that allows me to make measurements as needed for determining sizes when considering smaller paper and mixed media items.  Most of my brushes, markers, pens and pencils as well as pallet knives are also in this area.  

One thing I learned about the internet, especially in the early days, was that nothing there was sacred.  If you found it, (IT being patterns, tips, techniques and so on) it was best to print it out and store it somewhere because websites come and websites go and at any time, what you just found might never be accessible again.  The notebooks on the shelves over the desk hold the items that I have found over the years.  Some of them are duplicated, but as Granny once said: "Better to have and not need than to need and not have."

To the left in this photo you can see the screen for our server on which I have stored many of the videos and other information from our business.  Here too are all the electronics for our household such as internet modem, wi-fi router and central printer.  These are not specific to the crafting, but in  today's world, the internet makes almost everything possible.  

In the coming months, I am going to be giving presentations on several crafts including tatting.  Area weavers have asked if I would give a demonstration and teach them the basics of tatting.  For that I have set up my video station in this area as wel so I can create a visual to help them stay on task with the technique if I cannot give one-on-one instruction during the session.  Currently the video set-up looks like this photo:

The table is on casters for ease of movement and the camera is above the space ready to tape the moves that demonstrate the chosen technique, not just for tatting, but for any medium.  Under the table is an asortment of shoeboxes that contain adhesives, punches and embossing powders that remain accessible when I need them primarily for papercrafting.  When the camera is not attached to the table, I can  move the table into the center of the room and add a tabletop overlay for cutting fabric.  This allows for dress-makeing, quilting or painting of larger objects.  (Yes, all of these things are in the works!)  Off to the right is a rack that holds papers and cardstock as well as my sewing machine, notions box and a few items for floral work.  Of course the broom is for tidying up after the day is done.  

This is the result of more than 25 years of dedicated crafting.  While the organization has been coming together, the crafting has gone on.  You do not see a "comfortable chair" in here.  No, crafting can be dirty work that for me, at least, is often best accomplished standing up or sitting on a stool like the one in the photo above.  There is, however more to come about that "comfortable chair."

Changes and Refinement to the Craft Space

 Since our move into the new house, my craft space has evolved from a small outbuilding (hence the "Art Barn" designation) into a larger and better equipped basement room inside the house itself.  It remains "The Art Barn" but is better in every way!  Shelving is larger and more accessable, there is consistent heat and since it is in a sub-terrainian basement, during the hotest weather last summer, the room temperature was never above 72 degrees.  So far humidity has not been a problem.

With a speaking engagement with a local weavers guild coming up in May, I was in need of a desk mount camera stand that could handle video taping from overhead.  It has taken a while to find one (Good ol' Amazon!) and the unit arrived today.  It's not super complicated and since I don't expect to be live-streaming anything and have good edit software at my disposal, I can cut in shots, title slides or audio with explanations as necessary.  The stand can handle my Sony HDR-CX240 with ease.  First run of taping will come over the weekend.   This little device is full HD, lightweight and easy to use.  Like many similar camcorders, the microphone is the weak link in the overall function , but this camera was built for this sort of use.

Now that the tables and shelves are together and in the room, having the ability to tape instructions and demonstrations is exciting!

Tatting for the Fair

 Last fall, my friend served as a volunteer at the Mountain State Fair in Asheville, an event that I have submitted entries for the Tatting competition in years past.  She indicated that there were so few entries in the “Tatting"  catagory of Arts and Crafts that she feared that category would so go away in the not very distant future.  She encouraged me to find something that I could enter in the fair next year.  So I set about it.  

Over the years, I have collected tatting pattern books by various authors.  One such author is Ineke Kuiperij, a lady in the Netherlands whose books came across the Atlantic with my friend and tatting colleague Riet Surtel-Smeulders when she would journey to the US from her home in the Netherlands to visit family, attend Palmetto Tatters Guild’s Tat Days and other area events.  Sadly, Riet passed away in 2025 and the world has lost another grand master of the craft.

I looked through Ineke’s books and found one particular pattern that I felt would challenge my skills and be an appropriate entry into the competition this coming fall.  It is in this book and an image of my chosen ornament is shown on the cover in the upper right hand corner.  

The piece is complex and created in 4 panels.  Each panel has 5 independent sections which are joined as the piece is tatted along.  Beads are added at intervals.  I chose Liz Metalic in size 20 and the color 313 (SandDollar) with Hemitite beads size 4 mm and black onxy beads size 6 mm.  The pattern was written for size 80 thread and I knew this finished piece would be larger, but it was one I wanted to showcase.  

Judging how much to wind onto my shuttles can be a challenge as well and on the 4th section of the 1st panel, I cut it so close that I had to make the last ring a Split Ring even though the pattern did not call for it:

Thank goodness for crochet hooks and split rings!

Christmas is a-coming!

 With Yuletide upon us, creating gifts, tags and other things for the holiday has taken on a sense of urgency.   From my perspective, a hand-made gift holds special meaning.  The person who created it was thinking of the recipients especially and putting their personal energy into that special item while it was being made.  It is almost as if the item holds a blessing for the person for which it is intended.  

Even Christmas items hold a special feeling when they have been created by the home-owner. Our wreath this year began with a base of artificial greenery on a wire frame to which I added some apple wood branches from an apple tree felled during our encounter with Tropical Storm Helene when it came through her 16 months ago.  I added pine cones found locally and decorated with glitter paint, wild, dried flower stalks that I think are from the artemisia family and bits of lichens that I found on fallen limbs from a nearby silver maple.  

The gold mini-poinsettia flowers were artificial, but added some sparkle that was more muted on the pine cones.  The red ornaments were given to me by friend Sharon Tabor, a fellow-tatter and who created the tatting on them.  The bow has both burlap and acetate ribbon.   Hanging on the south side of our main entry, it will bless the house all all who enter by it.

Craft and Art

 During the past 6 or 7 months, we have been waiting for our new home to be ready for us to move into, there has been some time for reflection about some of the artistic pursuits I enjoy.  These include knitting, crochet, tatting, sewing, papercrafting, rosemalling (traditional Norwegian painting) and watercolor.  With such an extensive list, it's fair to state that I am not necessarily a master of any of these, although I have been active in many of these since childhood.  

As a tatter, I applied to a local Fine Arts League to enter one of their juried shows while also entering the local area fair's heritage techniques competition.  Twice I was awarded a red ribbon for my entry at the Mountain State Fair, but the Fine Arts League refused to allow my entry to their competition.  Upon asking for an expanation of the rational for declining my entry to such an organization, I was told that quilting is an art form, but tatting is not.  This seemed odd to me so an investigation of Art compared to Craft seemed appropriate.   

Not the highest level of researcher, I turned to the internet and found 2 sources that were intriguing:

https://artincontext.org/difference-between-art-and-craft/

and a video entitled  "How Folk Art Shaped the World We Know Today"  

What I am going to share comes from these sources and others as well.  Art historians H. W. Janson and A. F. Janson open their 1000 page "History of Art" by asking "What makes this Art?"  And this is indeed the quintessential question.  Mankind has been expressing himself by way of a variety of vehicles that are lumped together as "Art." From painting, to sculpture, to carving objects out of wood,  stone and bone, forming vessels from clay and turning animal hair (or human hair for that matter) into wearable clothing of unique style.  There is also photography, choreography, drama, music, creative uses of paper (oragami, for example) or even the making of paper itself; the list seems endless.  And still the question remains: "What makes any given endeavor Art?"  And what keeps tatting from being Art?

In the article "Difference Between Art and Craft - A Look at Art Versus Craft," Isabella Meyer wrote that the division between crafts and arts began during the Renaissance Period.  Beginning at the end of  Medieval Times, the Renaissance in Europe was a time of incredible and rapid growth of social, intellectual, economic and cultural growth that involved more secular individuals rather than the scholar-clerics of the previous age.  The great thinkers of the Renaissance were men and women of many talents who introduced new ways of thinking to their various homelands and pursuits.  During the Medieval times and earlier, the term "artist" didn't really exist.  People who were interested in or possessed an afinity to a particular endeavor would study as pupils or apprentices to a master of the skill.  All of them functioned at the behest of the client and generally speaking it was the patron who received the praise for the finished product.  The Renaissance changed that.

During this time there was an increase in modification to the way things were both considered and carried out.  It was the innovations that led to recognition of increasing numbers of outstanding individuals in given fields.  This meant that the artist became separated from the artisan and was subsequently held in higheer esteem.  Neither made their own tools or even materials, however the artists appear to have moved away from group practice such as had existed in the schools and guilds and into the realm of the solitary practitioner.

Additionally, Meyer, writing for the "Art in Context" organization's website, notes that what is seen as artistic has changed over time.  What is seen as Craft has structure and takes a long time to master.  The same can be said for Art and in many cultures, the distinction between them is blurred.  An object created may be very functional, but the design upon the finished product may be contemplated by the owner / observer and be the source of emotions brought up by gazing upon it.

Everyday objects that were functional for the common people were adorned with markings, or symbols of cultural or personal meaning.  Sometimes these were connected to stories that conveyed meanings to the observer.  Techniques that were associated with either the creation of the object itself or the images which adorned it were often passed down from one generation to the next   The Rennaisance did not affect this as a whole but the industrial revolution did.  Everyday objects were no longer created by the user or someone in their village or clan. Instead these were mass produced by machinery.  Sometimes there were crafters marks that were part of the object, but many times there was not.  It was during this phase that people began adding their own ornamentation to machine-made objects.

The Arts and Crafts Movement began in England in the last half of the 19th century.  It was led by people like William Morris and was an international trend in decorative and fine arts concepts that sought a revival of historic craftsmanship that eventually became the movement we now know as Art Nouveau.

One area this trend has specifically left off is that of fiber arts.  This time-consuming and labor intensive art form is one that has been carried out primarily (although not exclusively) by women.  The products that are created are often from natural elements and subject to breakdown and detioration over time by the forces of nature.   Yet the craftsmanship of preparing the fibers, spinning them into thread or yarn then weaving or knotting them together is more than 20,000 years old.  Fabric historians point to ways of creating cloth that have been lost to usbut may still be found in fabric museums around Europe.  This has come about in part because of the industrialization of weaving, knitting, crochet and lace-making  When an artisan puts himself or herself into one of these endeavors, each part of the process tells a story or has significance to both the person who created it and to the one who uses it.

Much artistic endeavors have endurance on its side: native artwork on the surface of clay vessels, the frescos of Italian churches, the plays of Euripides, the poetry of Homer, Dante and Chaucer, the Scandinavian designs on furniture and so many more.  Meyer and others point to function verses emotion as being the dividing line between Art and Craft.  But there is so much more, because what ever is created has a process that arises from desire and can connect the viewer to that desire, whatever the art form.    

Tatting seems to fall into the arena of Folk Art because of its  Living Tradition essence.  It is a practical skill yes, but one that over time has morphed in the hands of cultures around the world and has become a true artform reflecting the life and personal artestry that is unique to the creator.  Folk Art reminds us that "Art" is not confined to museums or galleries.  Art belongs in our homes and in our everyday lives.  It connects us to ourselves and to where we have come from.

Yes, there is Folk Art and there is Fine Art.  And they both have a place.

#Bead Me Endrucks December Game

I do my best to participate in the challenges or games associated with the Facebook Group Endrucks 1920 Project each month.  Doing so makes me more aware of tatting fundamentals and helps stretch my tatting skills.  For December, the challenge was to add beading to one of the motifs that Elonore Endrucks-Leichtenstern published in 1920.  For more information about this group, visit 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1235560633606162

The pattern #32 was re-written by Carin Jansen with notations updated to more modern standards.  Frau Endrucks published her work using written instructions in German and in a font that is hard to read by today's standards.  She used her own style of notations making following her instructions challenging.  Photos of each piece are present throughout the publication, but sometimes the photographer placed the tatting upside down or backwards before capturing the image for print.  This adds a layer of complexity to the work as a whole.  Consequently, it was Carin's interpretation that was the one I followed for this creation.  Carin's pattern is creative enough to offer up 2 ways of carrying out the motif: one that creates a continuoum along one side of the motif at the end of which the tatter can round the end and return to the starting point along the other side; 

 

and the second method creates a motif of blocks that can be joined together to form a length of lace or can be fashioned into a larger square, rectangle or shape such as a cross for a bookmark, according to the wishes of the individual following the pattern. 

My goal was to complete this pattern in such a way that it would encircle a satin-wrapped styrofoam tree ornament with a circumference of approximately 8" (20.32 cm).  Beads would be added to the tatting thread when the shuttles were wound so they could be added to the outer chain as well as to certain free picots of rings along the way.  The pattern as Carin prepared it using the first method did allow for that sort of configuration.

The motif at the top was not in any way from the Endrucks 1920 Project.  The design was fairly simple and tied the central section to the entire piece.  The pattern follows below and may also be found here:

December #BeadMeEndrucks Christmas Ornament Cap

 © 2025 Sally M. Biggers

Abbreviations / Notations: 

R = ring                                          p = picot                                Ch = chain                             

lbp = long bead picot                    prev = previous                     dnrw = do not reverse work

lj = lock join                                   vsp = very small picot          SCMR = self-closing mock-ring                                                        

Links to tutorials:

https://tipsaroundthehome.blogspot.com/p/tatting-resources.html

Basic Tatting Terms English-Italian https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_7DetVeL2rW7Y3GYkyjRdw7S6k8ZcWbh/view

Long Bead Picot technique by Jane Eborall   http://www.janeeborall.freeservers.com/AddBeadsNew.pdf

 

Materials:

Crochet hook                        20 15/0 seed beads                         10 6/0 seed beads

4 - 6 yards/meters Lizbeth thread size 40 or Olympus Lamé Metallic or similar thread

coiless safety pins

This pattern can be created with needle or shuttle

Instructions:

This small motif is made up of first a central beaded SCMR that alternates 5 long picots and 5 joining picots.  Over each of the long picots 4 15/0 seed beads are placed (lbp – 4 beads) and held temporarily by a coiless safety pin until it can be removed at the time they are lock joined by the chain in Round 1.  A 6/0 seed bead is slipped over each picot (lbp – 1 bead) in this round and likewise held in place by a coiless safety pin until the Round 2 chain connects these together. 

Wind about 1 M / yard of thread onto a shuttle without cutting it from the ball.  Using the diagram below, begin SCMR at point designated with the star and proceed as follows:

Central Ring:

SCMR: *3 ds, long lpb (4 beads), 3 ds, p *.  Repeat from * to * four times leaving off the final p. Close SCMR.  DNRW. 

Round 1:

Begin Ch with a vsp, * Ch 4 ds, lbp (1 bead), Ch 7 ds, lj to lbp of prev R leaving a small space, 7 ds, lbp (1 bead), 4 ds, lj to next p of prev R *.  Repeat from * to * 4 times leaving off the last p and lj to vsp that began the round.  Cut, tie and hide ends.

Round 2:

Re-wind shuttle with about 12 in / 30 cms of thread and do not cut from ball. Join to any vsp at the join of the lbp (4 beads) of the previous Round and begin chain.  *Ch 9 ds, p, 9 ds, lj simultaneously to both lbp’s of the previous Round, Ch 9 ds, p, 9 ds. Lj at top of lbp (4 beads) of previous round *.   Repeat from * to * 4 times, and lj the base of the first chain.  Cut, tie and hide threads.   

Finish:

Cut a length of thread measuring approximately 45 to 50 cms / 18 to 20 in.  Using a tapestry needle, thread one end of the length of thread and begin weaving it through the free picots alternating between the cap created by the above pattern and spaces between the chains on one of the sides of the Endrucks #32 motif around the widest portion of the ornament.  When all the spaces and picots have been threaded, adjust the tension between them to be neat and equal, then cut, tie and hide thread ends.

E32’s reworked pattern’s pdf is part of the Endrucks 1920 Project, please for any detail refer to the main Endrucks 1920 Project document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/17LEVftXweztBIOWh4sL4BB7bX65ssoOsOn4oXIgCepY/view )

The pattern may be reproduced for personal use and tatted freely.  

Yuletide is rapidly approaching and while we don't think we will be in the new house by Christmas Day, preparing ornaments has been a priority.   We probably won't have a tree or any serious decorations this year, but I'll be ready for 2025!

Below you see 5 ornament balls with their tatted covers.  From left to right, there is a black satin-wrapped styrophone ball covered with Olympus Lame Metallic thread color # 408 Bronze with added gold-ish bugle beads.  The pattern for the central motif was adapted from pattern 19 in Frau Endruck's Tatting / Schiffchen-Spitzen  publication of 1920.  The second ornament is actually a pale blue egg-shaped ornament addorned with white Lizbeth thread, size 20 and navy blue beads.  This was truly nothing fancy - simply 4 p 4 p 4 p 4 rings with the 11/0 seed beads covering what would be the chain thread and white tear-drop beads between the ring segments.  The third ornament is created using Joelle Paulson's 2012 "Flowering Quatrain Bookmark" (available on her blog) as the central wrap of the motif. It was created using the Italian thread "Master Metallic" in the color red/gold a personal favorite because it holds its shape so well when working up a pattern.  Not widely available Master Metallic is a special metallic thread unlike most of the others of that type. 

Number 4 is a pattern found in a photograph on Pinterest that I had to work out independently.  It is placed over a frosted green glass ornament.  The fifth ornament is again worked over a satin-wrapped styrofoam ornament.  The pattern is one I have lost track of but was carried out using another Master Metallic thread.  In each case, there is a basic pattern of either a simple ring with picots, a clover pattern or simple snowflake with the appropriate number of picots that would allow for weaving individual thread between top or top and bottom, joining these motifs to the central ring.  

I'm not going to post any patterns here at this time.  Much of the motifs used were simply ones that were just worked from memory or from basic tatting design principles.  

Getting Ready for Christmas, 2024

 Over the past 6 months, we have been waiting for the completion of our new residence in Haywood County. The time has been filled up by spending time with our grandchildren and their parents as well as reaching out to get to know our new community.  As a bridge player, seeking out a group of like-minded card players also became a way to integrate into our new surroundings. Like a similar group that I am a part of, the local Haywood County bridge group has an annual Christmas outing that includes gifting with small tokens.  Tatting is a perfect way to carry this out while passing time in one of my favorite activities.

In 2022, those of us who attended Tat Days organized by and carried out by the Palmetto Tatters Guild in South Carolina were presented with some small tokens from tatting great Georgia Seitz's collection of findings or trinkets that could be used in tatting or other crafts.  What I left with was in a small zipper bag with a label:

For the past couple of years I have not known what to do with these charms.  By virtue of the fact that the bail or connecting hole on the finding is present on both the top and the bottom of this particular set of pendants, they could be connected together into a bracelet or similar chain of findings.  As a result, there is now a challenge to create somethiing to gift my friends.  Using these presented itself as( an opportunity to take them and other findings that I already had) to create something unique.  

Metallic thread or more traditional cotton thread used side-by-side with metallic or sythetic fillament.  Usually I rely on Lisbeth cotton in the sizes 20 or 40.  Lisbeth also has a metallic thread that is of blended nylon composition.  Other simiular threads are found as Razzle-Dazzle, Olympic Lame, Oren Basak and the older (and for the most part no longer available) Candlelight threads.  There are also much older cotton and fillament blended threads that can be very fragile and difficult to work with.  

While it too some time to develop a plan to use these findings, I am happy with the final product:

These can be used on sweater or jacket pulls, to mark keys or on wallet or Bibpe zipper.  These are just simple trinkets to gift friends for use as they see fit.  In this case, I added a few beads as well as the lobster clasps tatted with a colorful quilting thread that has a bronze fillament thread wrapped onto the shuttle Ankars style

The Twelve Snowmen of Christmas, 2024

The preparations for the 2024 Deck the Trees fundraising effort revolve around the theme of "Winter Wonderland." While the image above is only of five snowmen, a complete set of 12 have been finished for this season's Tatted Tree.  Some years ago - 2011 to be precise - Palmetto Tatters Guild's Tat Days Conference had a similar theme: "Tatting in a Winter Wonderland" which had artwork in the Logo that included a snowman.  This has prompted the idea that snowmen would be an outstanding addition to the snowflakes, angels and bells that have been gracing the Tatted Tree for the past 13 years. 

Patterns for snowmen are a bit of a challenge to find, but Sandy Scales and Barbara Foster have written  a free one that can be found on the Handy Hands Tatting site here.   It is cute and fairly straight-forward to carry out.  Another such design is Wanda Salmans' "Button-centered Tatted Snowman" written in 2015.  This one, too is simple but effective.  Monica Hahn included 2 snowmen patterns in her Dover Needlework publication entitled "Christmas Angels and other Tatting Patterns"  Debbie Arnold sells a pair of patterns in her Etsy Shop and a completed tatted snowman is available for purchase from Tatted Dreams by Jolene Etsy shop.  That was for the most part the extent of what I found.  If I missed anything, it's on me, but armed with these patterns I set to work.  

It took several months to finish them, but to date, I have completed a total of 12 snowman bodies from 3 different patterns including ones with button centers and an older pattern that I have modified so that it went together more smoothly.  If a hat was part of the pattern, such as in the Scales & Foster pattern, the over all appearance seemed rather stiff.   Some of the patterns did not include hats at all. So off to the land of images went I looking for something I could use to add whimsy to the finished products.  I found a few that I though might be suitable, printed them out, re-sized them as necessary and came up with 3 options that I thought might work.  They looked like this:

Craft foam sheets are cost effective and easy to cut through.  They are useful in many crafting applications and really fit the requirements in this case because they are light weight, solid construction and not translucent or transparent.  I traced off the reapective outlines for each design and cut each out so that I had hats that looked something like this once a hat band was added:

The hats aren't very big some smaller ribbons were in order.  Since I am confined to our camper until the house is finished, I have to rely on what craft supplies I can find in our storage lockers unless I want to purchase items I have no room for.  Each hat that was worked up ranged in size between 1 inch and 2 1/2 inches wide and no more than an inch high.  If the ribbons on hand were too wide, I cut them down to a suitable size before adding them to the craft foam "hats."  

For the most part, the items were something I could use easily, but the ribbon with the red pom-poms was going to require greater modification,  I cut off the red pom-poms for use as "buttons" reserving the white band for use on some hats themselves.  

With the 12 hats and respective bands ready to attach to the tatted snowmen, I used a fabric glue to put the parts together.

Any of the snowmen that did not have a face as part of the tatting or pattern was going to require adding sequins for eyes and mouth and something to indicate buttons on the "body."  

The hats taken from snowmen images really added a touch of fancifulness to these snowmen!  Lastly,  ribbon scarves and embelishments are added to the hats as well as hangers to mount them on the tree at the Monte Vista Hotel the first week of December.  More to follow once the date has arrived.

Moving to More Tatting

 I haven't created a post here in quite a while.  It has been quite a journey from late January to today.

The door on the art barn has been replaced thanks to our friend and HandiMan Alex.  The building is now secure and weather proof!

Meanwhile, I hit a problem in one of my tatting projects: it involved a pattern printed originally in Norwegian, I believe.  Once translated, there were some linguistic obsticals to overcome.  I am not sure if I made a mistake or if there was an error either in the pattern or in the translation, but something had to be re-arranged.  Sometimes, in cases like this, shifting emphasis to something else is beneficial.

One day I saw a Facebook post about a flower that had been created by Krystyna Mura based on a 1920 publication in German by Eleonor Endrucks.  Someone had suggested that the pattern might be suitable for a 3-D version.  Since that looked similar to other 3-D flower patterns I had tatted, noteably those of Linda S. Davies of England, I decided to divert my attention from that which was overwhelming me and give this a spin.  The resulting pattern is this one.  

The next several weeks were spent tatting the specimen, creating the pattern using Inskscape, testing and re-testing the written pattern and reaching the final outcome.

The project is known as Endrucks 1920 Project and is housed on Facebook.  It was begun in 2015 when Tatting Expert Georgia Seitz approached another Tatting Mentor known as Muskaan to tat one of the patterns pictured in the publication.

There is a particular twist on this story: Eleonore Endrucks' work is printed in an Old German Gothic font and rather than giving written patterns, the publication consists of mostly photographs of the works and a rather general description of the way she created each piece.  They are unique in their own right.  But with directions that are challenging to first read and then to carry out, the creation of each design is largely left up to anyone who can look at a photo and carry out the design.

The group was formed and was joined quickly by Ninetta Caruso, Martha Ess (who first scanned and donated the publication to the Antique Pattern Library, in the public domain), Vicky Clarke and many others.  Since that time, a wealth of patterns has sprung off the nimble fingers of many of the 2000 members.  To date, I have contributed several patterns or variations of patterns myself.  The most recent one being completed with the help of Muskaan during the past winter months.  It's titled "January Snowflake" and complete pattern can be found here.  

Since this pattern was completed, my husband and I have begun migrating our posessions to storage while we prepare to relocate nearer to our son and his family.  I do so miss my craft space which has been dismantled and tucked away for safe keeping.  But tatting is quite portable and I have good projects to keep my "crafter's urges" satisfied.

New Times, New Blog!

Through the recent pandemic, I've been as isolated as I neede to be to protect myself, my family, my crafting buddies and my clients from becoming ill. Being this sort of confined opened opportunities for continued growth in the crafting world. This has brought me a lot of happiness and made some of it shareable with those I care about. The first thing I was able to do was to turn an outbuilding into. . . The Art Barn!! It's not very big - about 12 feet square, but it has 2 lofts for storage and with the shelving, craft table and organizational items, has been a life-saver - well more of a sanity-saver - over the past several years! Since setting everything up, I have been collecting stamps, dies, papers and other embellishments for creating hand made cards for all occasions. Christmas card greetings for the holidays are items I have created during times gone by, but I'm adding to my skills and collections. Cards for birthdays, graduations, special events and others can be pricy! I checked out Target several years back and at that time a hand-made card was more than $7.00. It doesn't take long for that to translate into $100.00 or more and the crafting items will allow many more than the 12 or 13 cards that $100.00 will buy. Even from other outlets such as Dollar Stores and grocery or variety stores, the occasions rack up quickly. Tatting contiinues to be my primary crafting focus, although I have also renewed my interest in knitting and sewing. I'm sure there will be more to come - with Autumn and Winter approaching, outside times will become inside times.