This image was scanned from my personal library
NO TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title: OCCHI: Blätter, Streifen, Pfeile, Bänder, Zacken(TATTING: Leaves, Strips, Arrows, Ribbons, Spikes)
Author/Designer: Ruth Scharf
Format/Publication Date: TPB:1997
Publisher: Self, Minden, Germany
Language: English
Page Count: 48
Book Dimensions(ht. x w.): 11 3/4" x 8 1/4"
ISBN: None
SUMMARY- I'm always very happy and excited to discover a designer who has taken tatting in a direction I haven't seen before. Ruth's tatting fits this description exactly. Ms. Scharf uses very few rings in her work - it is almost entirely chains arranged in blocks in order to form the leaves, strips, arrows, ribbons and spikes she used in the title of her book. Her book is in German, but she provides diagrams and mostly symbolic notation so you only need to memorize a few basic words to use her patterns. She will fool your eyes into thinking it is crochet at first glance because of the dense blocks of chains. She also loves rosettes and uses them as tiles in runners and larger pieces. They have to be seen to be believed. She cites Mary Konior's advice to look at the patterns from other disciplines and convert them to tatting as her source of inspiration.
If you love seeing the medium stretched and new trails blazed, I strongly recommend these as a "must have" on your tatting shelf. It's not often that I run across work so spectacular - and you know from reading other reviews that I can be pretty stingy with my praise. I'm keeping my finger's crossed that the contact information provided in the blog below is still good after four years, and that there are still some copies left...
There is a blog that gives urls and a contact e-mail for buying Ruth's books:
http://umintsuru.blogspot.com/2012/02/tischband-tat-along-blute-1-pattern.html