More Wild Women

I was honored and delighted when they selected my Wild Haired Women for this year's Palmetto TatDay's logo.  I'll be teaching a selection of them in my class there.  My upcoming book with have more hairstyles and a second body to choose from.  I think they are a lot of fun.  Instead of blocking them, I like to leave them just as they come off the shuttle, each with her own personality, like she is skipping or dancing.

 

Inspiration for the Oz Tatting

Someone said my Dorothy was pudgy 😢

(It's OK, just joking with the crying face.)

Since I'm working from the book illustrations, I don't think I'm too far off. Getting that ruffle all the way across the yoke of her dress without a cut and tie was a challenge, but I managed.  I'll stand by my Dorothy.

 

More Sneak Peaks

 

Here are a few more motifs that will appear in my upcoming book. Maybe to be ready in August. Watch this space!

New Book Coming!

I've been lazy with designing for a few years, but it's time to buckle up and get a new book done.  Look for it coming out sometime this summer (I hope).  

Whimsical Tatting will include assorted light hearted motifs.  These characters, inspired by the W. W. Denslow illustrations from the public domain original version of L. Frank Baum's Wonderful Wizard of Oz from 1900 will be included.

There will also be a puppy, a kitty, a space alien, some little dragons and a few more odds and ends.

Palmetto TatDays: Register Now

 

It's time to stop neglecting my poor old blog.  

The Palmetto TatDays are coming up soon, being held August 17 - 20, in beautiful Lake Junaluska, NC.  This is always one of the high points of my year, as I enjoy spending time with friends and the classes so much.  Don't forget the vending room and the auction.  This conference is especially convenient, as the rooms, the classes, and the meals are all in the same building.  (But if you would like to camp or stay somewhere else, that's possible too.)  I'll be teaching a few classes, myself.

Registration is open now, and closes Saturday, July 8 at 8 pm EDT. 

For more information, see the Palmetto Website: https://www.palmettotatters.org/

Watch this space for information on my upcoming new book!

American Needlewoman, November 1925, part 2

 This is the other tatting pattern from the November 1925 issue, a doily edging by Marie Haase.  She was also a contributor to Needlecraft and Modern Priscilla magazines.  I suspect she was related to Clara Haase, another designer of that era.

In defense of American Needlewoman, with its small handful of patterns on poor quality paper, you get what you pay for.  In 1925, its yearly subscription was only 25 cents, while Needlecraft was 50 cents, and Modern Priscilla was a whopping 2 dollars.  Modern Priscilla was the oldest, having started in 1887, and had many more pages on much better paper.  Needlecraft had started out as a Vickery & Hill publication, but in April 1914 changed to Needlecraft Publishing Company.  I suspect this was still a division of Vickery & Hill, but as the magazine was improving its content and paper quality to look more like Priscilla, perhaps an attempt to distance itself from all those cheap newsprint magazines.  Oops, I digressed.

American Needlewoman, November 1925 part 1

I recently obtained a handful of issues of The American Needlewoman, another Vickery & Hill Publishing Company magazine.  I was a bit disappointed as there was far more fiction than there was needlework.  The average issue had an installment of a serial, 3 more short stories, and around 4 pages of needlework, usually one of which having embroidery patterns that had to be ordered separately.  On the other hand, tatting usually made an appearance.

The magazine began around June 1890 as American Woman, and in May 1923 changed its name to The American Needlewoman. In May 1927, it changed again, to The American Homemaker.  I wonder if the name changes were to make it appear useful to the casual observer while the reader could enjoy the romantic stories.

The November 1925 issue had 3 tatting patterns, 2 of them by a Mrs. D. A. Davis.  Note that in this context, beading has nothing to do with beads, and is instead a trimming designed to have a ribbon threaded through it.  As before, I have cropped and pasted to put the parts of the patterns closer together, click to enlarge.  I'm still playing with resizing to find the smallest file size that will still be easy enough to read.