Funny but a true story

[Kimonogirl808]

The first time I learned about tatting was reading a Bead & Button magazine that featured this lavendar (my favorite color) with crystal necklace which I fell in love with. I learned to needle tat with Barbara Foster's booklet.

I did a little research and found out that you can make even more beautiful tatting with a shuttle so I bought a book by Rebecca Jones. I spent hours trying to figure out how to shuttle tat and was completely frustrated. My boyfriend who was laying next to me leaned over and smuggly said, "Want me to show you how?" I gave him a dirty look and thought there is no way he could do this if I can't even figure it out!

Feeling so defeated after spending hours trying to do it, I handed it over to him and said, "Okay, but I don't think that you can do it (I almost wished he wouldn't figure it out)." Within a few minutes ... TADDAHHH!!! He managed to make his first double stitch using one of the 5 ways shown in the book. I asked him which one he chose and he said that he looked for the one with only 2 pictures and he did it!

Okay, at this point I wanted to slap that huge smile he had on his face, but thanks to him he helped me get on my way to shuttle tatting.

Since then everytime I struggle with something (crafting or anything I'm getting frustrated in figuring out) he leans over and with that smuggly look on his face and asks me, "Want me to teach you how to do it?" I slap him and tell him leave me alone! LOL j/k ... I tell him sure (but in my mind I'm slapping him to death LOL).

[PattyD]

Makes ya wanna go HMMMMMMM...........
I mean, how is that this great smirking person could be so nifty and crafty????

Ain't love grand?

[Kimonogirl808]

He also showed me how to wire wrap a cage around a pearl bead! I started wanting to make my own jewelry for fun. I later adventured to wire wrapping. Much later I was inspired to learn how to tat.

On occassion, I may be at a Doctor's office sitting in the waiting room waiting to be seen, and to pass the time I will take out my tatting project. Every now and then I will have a lady come up to me and asked me where I learned to do this. I reply saying that I taught myself (but of course we all know now who really taught me how to tat!) but I then explain that it was actually my boyfriend who showed me how.

I usually tell them that I wanted to hurt him after he figured it out and was giving me this huge grin looking all smuggly at me .... and, funny thing ... most of the ladies agree with me LOL!!~ In fact, I had one lady say that she would slap him for me .... Heehee.

Anyway, it's funny how something can draw people to you and you find yourself having this conversation that you wouldn't have ever had if it wasn't for tatting.

What a blessing!

[Pat can tat]

yeah, I love to tat in public places and see what happens. Many of the older ladies (and some men). remember how, have lovely memories to share and enjoy seeing tatting again.Surprising the number who talk of throwing it against the wall in frustration! Younger people remember their grandparents or older relatives doing tatting. Some people want to learn (but when I show them they back down). Children usually think it is the coolest thing - I tell them they can learn on the internet and U-Tube. I usually do end up saying that famous phrase "it is not a lost art - many people do tatting and you can learn too" I have met a woman who repairs tatting for good money, and another who said I should advertise in the back of knitting magazines that I will tat for $$$. I doubt there would be many takers - and how would you price the stuff? I think the kids have it right - it really is pretty cool.

[McPhel]

Reminds me of a quilting story. John Flynn is one of the "top of the food chain quilters". He was an engineer and when his wife took up quilting he decided he could do it better. They now have a successful buisness along with a daughter. A friend of his son could not beleive that a man would be a quilter. He decided that he was a spy for the CIA and the quilting was a cover story!LOL
Check out the on line Etsy shops. There is tatting for sale there. Totusmel sells very cool things.

[BlueDode]

Great topic, Kimonogirl808! Here's my two cents' worth:

A couple of years ago I taught a friend's husband to shuttle tat so that the two of them could tat edgings for pillowcases for a wedding gift. I was the teacher, because hey, I was a tatting teacher at the time...

He was the quickest learner I have ever run into, and I've taught dozens of people to tat. It's that Boy Scout badge in knot tying that prepared the way to make tatting a breeze. And, hit tatting was impeccably even. BTW: I gave him all my shutles with hooks on the points -- I kept stabbing myself with them --since his hands were big enough the hook posed no such problem for him.

I did have a student once who claimed to be learning tatting for the first time, but when it came time to "flip" the stitch, she did it automatically, smoothly, first try. After some prodding, she admitted to learning to tat years ago, but she had forgotten. Yet, her muscle memory retained how to do the flip. She also had an unusual way of holding the thread in her hands -- not one I taught, not one I'd seen in any books -- but hey, it worked well for her and I know to leave well enough alone in these cases.

I've read that early tatting may have grown out of the knotting sailors tie to fix their nets. And, since early times, sailors have had "hours of boredom separated by moments of terror", they made tatted trinkets for girl friends. I know there are other views of the origins of tatting, but this story connects men to this history.

[wezyus]

Thnks for the funny story ...its really gud n interesting

[Fox Tats]

Hi Everybody! This is an interesting... hmmm..... thread! Fox : ))

[katie]

LOL! That's a really cute love story! That's a story for the grandkids some day, "when grampy was so smuggly!"

[CindyK]

That is a cute story - dang it, why do our men have to catch on so easily and then smirk? I'd like to slap them when they do that too! Who knew knotting sailors and boy scouts could be useful for teaching tatting? Gotta love 'em :)