Breaking down the elements

It turns out that there are an adequate number of video tutorials on tatting — especially once you filter out the tat-tooing videos, many of which will drop your stomach. (I guess we can call lace making “the other kind of tatting.”) Compared to the purly oceans of knitting and crocheting videos — I’ve consulted those too over the years, and it’s arguable that my enjoyment of those hobbies hostessed me to tatting — they were frustratingly uneven, and it took me a while to find a selection that I felt I could depend upon. That said, there were certainly enough videos to get the gist, and it turned out that for something that appears so complex, the main ingredients of tatting are surprisingly simple.

Spring Doily, Round 4. (15,460 knots)

Tatting is essentially a sequence of knots (called stitches) — either in a line (called a chain) or in a circle (called a ring). Tatting motifs (that’s what the overall design is typically called) are described in tatting patterns, which are easy to follow once you get over the fractal infinities of how they first appear. By following the number and sequence of stitches, rings, and chains in the pattern, the tatted piece slowly takes shape. (For you knot enthusiasts, the stitches are made of simple half-hitches; and two half-hitches, side-by-side, form the common Lark’s Head knot or Cow Hitch. In tatting, this knot is called the “double stitch.”)

In this heart motif you can see the series of chains, rings, and picots throughout. Pattern design: Susan Fuller. [Link]

And here’s the pattern for the heart.

It’s useful to think of tatting as the interaction between two threads. There’s the “working thread” (the thread that moves a lot), and there’s the “core thread” (which remains pretty still). One thread essentially becomes the “strand” over which the half-hitches are tied in sequential order, and so in the end you get a series of stitched knots that becomes the building block of all tatted patterns.

Here’s me tatting (close enough to actual speed).

When you look at a piece of tatting, you can see these stitches all in a row — sometimes three or four of them, and sometimes more than 10 — but you’ll also notice that they’re often interrupted by tiny, decorative loops of thread. These are called “picots” (from the French piquer, ‘to prick’), and they result from simply adding a bit of slack between the first and the second half hitch, then sliding them together to pop out this lovely embellishment. Picots are used decoratively, sure, but they’re also used to attach neighboring parts of the pattern together. The whole thing is fairly straightforward, actually; beyond stitches, rings, and chains, there are “advanced techniques” (you can learn how to add beads along the thread of tatted jewelry, for example, or celtic patterns with overlapping chains), but the vast majority of tatting patterns are made up of these basic elements.

This is from a good starter booklet called Easy Tatting. by Rozella F. Linden. The pattern is called — over-humbly — Eight-Inch Doily. I’ve tatted this pattern a lot. Here, you can see the same pattern with the same two colors, only swapping the ring colors for the chain colors. The positive/negative differences in how they read can be significant.

Tatting is typically done with “tatting thread,” of which there are different brands and materials, colors, and thicknesses. The “weight” of the thread describes this thickness, and it’s logically easier to learn with thicker thread — really at that point it’s “string” (say size 3) — and then work your way down to thinner thread (say size 80). The thinnest I ever use is 20, but if your skill and your eyesight permit, you can get quite a bit thinner. (The same pattern with thinner thread will result in an appreciably smaller end result.) Most tatting thread is made of 100% cotton, which doesn’t stretch (and shouldn’t), but as a result, is not very forgiving. (Unlike in knitting or crocheting, where some stretch can help in the crafting of the piece, and of course in its wear or use.) There are metallic threads used for fancy jewelry (I’ve tried that once; it was surprisingly straightforward.) And a not-quite infinite number of colors, but plenty. (Marilee Rockley hand-dyes some pretty exquisite shades if you want to go off the beaten path. Also, she has a new Craftsy online class here.)

These bookmarks use variegated thread, which changes colors along its length. (Many people have very strong feelings about variegated thread. And by very strong feelings, I mean very violent feelings.) Pattern design: (Left: practice ring; Right: Found on Pinterest here; please contact me if you know the origin. Dying to credit.

Piecing together a patchwork of other video tutorials, I was able to begin my pursuit with what I considered a purer execution of the form. It’s pretty aesthetic.

Tatting is simple to describe now, but at the start of this hobby it seemed like there was a lot to learn, and so I watched a ton of YouTube tutorials to get there. (Remember, I had no teacher, and unlike knitting classes in knitting stores, never considered that I could find one even in a metropolis like New York City. Indeed, if you ask employees in yarn stores if they have any tatting supplies, half will not know what you are talking about and say no, and the other half will know what you are talking about but still say no. It’s a pretty arcane thing.)

[If you’re in Oakland California, however, you have a garden of eden at Lacis — an incredible place to visit and shop. I was there for 2.5 hours the last time I visited.]

Watching these videos, it seemed that there were two principle ways to tat. There is “needle tatting,” where the tatting thread is repeatedly knotted over the shank of a long needle, then pulled off of it at the end of a sequence. And then there is “shuttle tatting,” where a small shuttle (made of wood or bone or plastic or metal), pre-wound with the tatting thread and held in one hand, is passed over-and-under in a kind of cat’s cradle of thread in the other hand to accomplish the desired results. Given my fondness for medical device design, you’d think I would have chosen needle tatting, but I became mesmerized by the motion of shuttle tatting in the video tutorials: There were lots of moving parts, the shuttles were often quite beautiful in and of themselves, and, well, there was Karen Cabrera.