Tatting mystifies me. Always has. My uncle’s mother — I’m not sure there’s a name for such relatives-through-marriage — was the first person I ever saw tat. She created charming lace with only her hands, a length of thread, and a small shuttle. A jeweler by trade, Mrs. R was sharp-eyed and noticed details. She also fried an exemplary green tomato in her iron skillet. Ensconced and sedentary in an overstuffed, barkcloth-upholstered armchair, only her mouth and hands moved, yet they each moved at a different pace. As she gossiped with my grandmother, small loops of variegated cotton fluttered about her fingers and waved in a syncopated rhythm. The loopy lace grew at an imperceptible pace. She tatted fancy edgings in pink and green, purple and yellow, or green and white to tuck into birthday cards.
A friend who tats shared an instructor’s opinion: tatting is one of the most difficult fiber arts to learn yet the easiest to do once learned. Like doing the samba, it’s a muscle memory thing. Knots are tied and loops (“picots”) formed into designs using a needle or a shuttle (or, sometimes, only one’s hands). Hooks, like crochet hooks, may be employed. The thread is typically a “hard” cotton which holds its twist, finer than crochet thread — though, in the way of the world, tatters have experimented with all sorts of cords and threads. Cro-tatting is a hybrid combination of tatting and crochet. Japanese tatting is another version of tatting. All have their origins in knotwork dating back to ancient Egypt and China and, most likely, to the fancy knots of sailors as well.
I turned to my friend Panita Greer, an award-winning tatter, to help me better understand this. Panita’s Texas childhood persists in her soft accent. At eighty-five, she’s unlikely to lose it. She is an accomplished fiber artist and credits her grandmother Marib Maria Greene Jones with setting her on this path.
Marib was a farm wife in Denton County, Texas. Panita, a city child, was fascinated with everything on the farm and had no fear. “Almost got killed by a sow when I picked up a piglet. Mama (sow) was coming at me like a ton of bricks. Daddy picked me up.” Another time, Panita was cornered by two turkeys being raised for the upcoming Thanksgiving and Christmas meals. Armed with a stick, her back against the barn wall, she battled her way out of that predicament.
Her grandmother’s strategy for dealing with Panita’s curiosity was to keep her granddaughter busy. Her tactic was to teach her needlework. Marib was “a gifted needlewoman. She could make anything. She’d take about two measurements and make you a dress that fit. Did all the needle arts and taught me all of them. I learned to sew at two — she let me sew on the treadle sewing machine…At three, she taught me to crochet. I crocheted little round rugs for my dollhouse. I soon branched out once I got started. At six, she taught me to knit…Every time I came to visit, she taught me something. Huck weaving, thread count, pulled hemstitching…”
Panita explained that tatting was faster and cheaper than making other lace. Her grandmother “would never have reached the point where she could afford store-bought lace. She had five boys and two girls on a family farm. She made butter, raised chickens and sold eggs, cleaned chickens and sold them. So busy. Cooked every darn meal the family ate and raised half the food. She plowed with a two-horse plow…used a white horse and a mule to plow her kitchen garden. I watched her (work) with the reins tied together, looped over her shoulder as she needed two hands to push down the plow. You plowed with what you had.”
When Panita was thirteen, her grandmother decided Panita’s fingers were long enough and she was coordinated enough to tat. Tatting is “tricky, involves tensioning.” She explains, “It’s similar to the tension used today to thread eyebrows, with tension pulling in three directions at once.”
“I’m a retired math teacher. Tatting is very mathematical, very orderly, requires advanced planning. Very premeditated. I think it’s absolutely beautiful. Knitting does the same thing for me. Almost like a rosary…repetitive, soothing, just sit there, not really thinking, just doing…can think about anything you want to, and your hands just keep on going.”
Hands have been knotting patterns for hundreds of years. Though there are many portraits of 18th-century-women with shuttles, experts have quibbled and declared the women were not tatting but doing knotwork. Tatting was very popular in the 1800s. Women, entertaining themselves over tea or lemonade, could pull out their thread and shuttle and tat and talk and talk and tat. Others tatted to create low-cost, durable lace trims for clothing and household linens.
Though edgings come to mind when tatting is mentioned, the technique is also used to make jewelry (necklaces and chandelier earrings), doilies, collars, shawls, bookmarks, and baby items. Baby bonnets to wear to christenings have long been popular. Today, segments of tatting decorate handmade greeting cards and junk journals. Artists turn to tatting to create fantastical pieces — everything from kangaroos to elaborate knot-like pieces. You can follow this link to see the results of an international juried tatting exhibition at California’s Lacis Museum.
If you’d like to see flying tatting fingers and learn specifics, here’s a helpful video. Classes can be found through craft sites, museums, and occasionally, historic homes. Tatted items, including vintage lace yardage, are available for purchase online through craft and auction sites. Tatting shuttles, antique and modern, are available in everything from sterling silver to celluloid and can be used as prized tools or as collectibles.
For those seeking a meditative art or a novel craft experience, give it a try. It’s inexpensive, portable, and might keep you out of trouble on the farm.
Another wonderful historical article on "feminine skills" that have been almost lost. Tatting, lace making, knitting, crocheting and quilting are just a few skills semi-lost in the modern world. I'm greatful that my Grandmother took the time to teach her 9 grand daughters how to knit and crochet by 8 yrs old and how to sew by 10 yrs old. While I did also learn how to cross-stitch, embroider and quilt, I never took the time to learn the tatting or bobbin lace that she also did in there "spare time" on the farm.
Great post on tatting. I'd always heard that tatting (and I believe crocheting) came from the sailors. Something for them to do in their off time. Both my grandmothers were lefties, and neither one would teach me knitting or crocheting or any of those because I am a rightie. I'm pretty sure one of them tatted, but possibly both.