Lace Making & Tatting

This room is for conversation about the art of making lace of any style, (bobbin lace, needle lace etc)  thread sizes, types of thread, shuttles, pins, patterns, or anything related to this topic and to show photos of your work or related information that does not have copywrite. I hope our lace makers or those that want to make lace find their way to this forum. 

I would love to learn how to make lace, and learn to tat. I have tatting shuttles, and a How-To book, but would love any suggestions on any websites or You-Tube videos that provide helpful instructions. I would hate to see these beautiful skills lost.

Grandma Donna wrote, Hi Rebecca A, I inherited my Grandmothers metal tatting shuttle after my mother passed away and I had no idea what to do with it. I was on a mission to learn.  I tried books but I am a visual learner watching someone so I went to YouTube when they started making videos about tatting. I did finally learn to tat and also learned all I could about thread, something very important to understand.  Then I went on to learn bobbin lace and could not afford a bobbin pillow so I made two different ones. The books became useful later to go further with this skill. 

One day in a waiting room doctor office I was tatting while I was waiting and a lady got up and came over to sit with me.  She told me that she had a shuttle but could not learn the flip. So we sat there and thankfully each had enough time for her to learn the flip as I showed her and then handed it to her to try and she finally flipped the thread and as she almost squealed I could feel the people in the room being joyful with her  :)

My suggestion is to learn the basics and there are very good videos on YouTube.  When you are ready to do the flip, you will know what that means once you have learned to load and hold the shuttle and thread, find a video for just the flip if the one you are watching is not clear enough for you.  This is something you will need to see and feel.  I was going to send a link or two but we all learn at different speeds and some teach it fast and some very slow.  Find who you relate to.  Tatting is fine work, small thread and it takes longer.  It is something that you can make a full piece or edging which is so pretty to me.

One more thing, I have tried different shuttles because I only had the one metal shuttle.  I normally tat one or two shuttles.  I have plastic metal and wood.  The plastic and the wood shuttles make a light click sound when you tat and it is almost soft music to me as I sit and click away. One way we can keep this skill from being lost is to take your work with you when you are waiting somewhere and people will come over to you and ask questions, some with memories of long ago when their mother or grandmother would tat. You only need one shuttle to learn to tat but you will most likely want a second shuttle.  

My photos are my shuttle box I keep my shuttles small pieces of my old practice pieces, my metal, plastic and wood shuttles, and my small change purse.  The change purse holds my shuttles and work piece when I go somewhere.  It is a very portable work. I normally take an extra shuttle that is loaded in case someone wants to learn.  The photo of my thread box, not at tidy as it could be, my tip for the threads are to write the number of the thread inside the thread tube with a marker, it is a bit fiddly but do this to keep up with the size once the wrapper or marker goes missing.  I hope this helps.