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UPDATE ARCHIVE for 2019

OCTOBER 09^th, 2019:

I've started serious work to get the Quilting Bibliography up and running. I'm not doing a quilting bibliography because I don't think there are plenty of resources for quilters - it's one of the most popular crafts out there - but because my mother, an avid quilter, has passed away this year, leaving me so many quilts and tops I haven't had time or strength to count them all. I'll be putting up a slideshow of her work along with the bib page in order to commemorate a lifetime of work and her achievements as an artist, because I believe all quilters are artists. Just the logistics of photographing all of her quilts and tops is going to be a serious achievement on my part. Her very first quilt was made for me, with matching curtains and dust ruffle for the bed, when I was five years old. She let me pick out the fabric - and I chose this really bright yellow and orange cotton that can damage adult retinas if stared at too long. I still have the complete set, tucked away in my cedar trunk, and as loved today as it was when I was five. Mom left me her quilting library, which consisted of about 400 books and 2,000+ magazines. I had no idea how many magazines she had. They were in two storage units she had rented in Kansas(I brought her to live with me in North Carolina) and we never got the money put together to move them from Kansas. I had her pickup truck and drove to Kansas for the funeral, picking up my brother on the way. He, my younger sister, and I went through those storage units in three days, completely filling two large industrial waste bins, hauling truckload after truckload to the local thrift shops, and getting the aid of my mom's quilt guild PRAIRIE QUILT GUILD , who gamely came with multiple pick-up trucks(multiple times) to haul away all the fabric to the Mennonite Central Committee in North Newton. They do awesome charity work all over the world, and will use my mom's jaw-dropping stash of fabric as she'd wish it to be used. I naively thought I could get everything into a pick-up truck that needed to go back with me to NC. We were debating how to get the magazines back with me when the sky decided to open up and pour water down on everything we'd pulled out of the units. The magazine boxes were 2x2x2 foot cubes that the Egyptians would have been proud to have for one of their pyramids, were heavy clay content magazines considered a suitable building material, and we were all exhausted, hurting, and overheated(it was August) by that point. Needless to say, I lost all but three of the magazine boxes, and that makes me tear up every time I think about it. I know it's not about the magazines. I'm crying because I lost my mom, but it's a trigger for all those awful feelings of grief and loss and it paralyzes me from doing anything for a while. There is still so much to get done... Anyway, I'm working on it. I'm nearly to the end of the "B's".

I'm still working on the scanning and cropping and converting of the covers and tatting articles for NEEDLECRAFT. I about have the scanning done for the first decade(yay?), and have a friend who's also a collector naively agree to scan partial pages from her own collection to fix those pages in my own collection that are too damaged to read well. So I'll be getting out "Photoshop for Dummies" again to figure out how to cut and paste pages together. (and thank you, Martha - everyone is going to owe you big time for this. I hope appreciative tatters will buy you dinner occasionally to show that appreciation!)

SEPTEMBER 09^th, 2019:

I'm so excited to get the Quilling(paper filigree) Bibliography up and running. This particular discipline really appeals to me because of the lacy effect that the curled paper strips give. This particular discipline dates back several centuries - I saw a wall candle sconce that dated back to 1725. I have only found about 200 books on the subject so far - and have been able to review only the small double handful that I actually own a copy of. I'm sure there are many many more, but like the majority of craft disciplines, print runs for individual books will have been very small and poorly distributed. I ran across this problem with tatting books, and know it to be a serious problem for the bobbin lacers and leathercrafters as well. Quilters, knitters and crocheters have it a bit easier, but even they have grails to be sought in vain. I will continue to add information to the quilling page(and finally try this out for myself!)

The issues I have of NEEDLECRAFT(1909 - 1941) have been catalogued, and I am in the process of scanning the covers and tatting articles. PDFs of the tatting articles will be imbedded in the catalog so that they may be downloaded at will. This lovely magazine is no longer under copyright. I work on this for a couple hours every day - but it's a slow slog. The magazines are oversize, the paper is usually pretty tanned, and quite a few of my issues are not in great shape, so there's a lot more work to be done to get the pdfs up to a useful quality. It doesn't help that the paper is also fragile, and I'm trying hard not to do any harm as I support the portion of the magazine that doesn't fit on the scanning bed, press down on the book that is helping to remove the fold across the center from how they were mailed back then, and pressing buttons to start the scanning process. It's going to take me some time, so be patient...

I've been organizing my mother's quilt books and have begun cataloging and reviewing them. I hope to have the quilter's bibliography page up by January!

JULY 09^th, 2019:

The brand new Leather Working Bibliography is now up and running - sort of. I have no books reviewed on this page yet. I have the catalogs started for The Leather Craftsman and Make It With Leather, and I've started a catalog for The Leather Crafters and Saddlers Journal(of which I have only a small handful so far). I will fill out more of this bib page as I come across more materials.

The TIME LIFE BOOKS PAGE has just been updated.

And I've finally started work on "Needlecraft: Home Arts" run of women's magazines that ran from 1909 to 1941! These older magazines were done in very small crowded type face that are hard for me to read, so it's going to be a very long hard slog. I don't have any issues before 1912, but I keep looking. I've already cataloged what I have of "Priscilla" from the same time period, and am still working on piecing together runs of "American Needlewoman," "Hearth & Home," and "Star Needlework Journal," among others. "Needlecraft" in particular supported tatting very well, as you'll soon see. Something I'm going to be adding to the antique magazines are pdfs of patterns embedded in the catalog since they are long fallen out of copyright. This means it's going to take even longer than usual to get the catalog done, so bear with me, please.

JULY 03^rd, 2019:

The brand new ELIZABETH HIDDLESON page is now up and running. If you don't know who I'm talking about, and are a crocheter, then this page is a must see. I believe we have the most complete catalog of Mrs. Hiddleson's work, along with a brief biography provided by Jennie Gaskin and Becky Clark. Jennie also still has a large stock of the books and single patterns of Mrs. Hiddleson's for sale! Jennie can be reached through her website at: http://www.countryyarns.com and she has a blog at: http://countryyarnscrochet.wordpress.com/. I was able to fill in the holes in my own collection without a problem, and for a very reasonable price. She made it her business to keep these books available by buying up all the stock from Mrs. Hiddleson's granddaughter(several tons of material!) when Shirley decided to retire. If you have an interest in Mrs Hiddleson's work, I'd take advantage while I could.

MAY 31^st, 2019:

The brand new CROCHET BIBLIOGRAPHY PAGE is now up and running. You no longer have to pick through all the entries on the Tatting Bibliography page to find what I have cataloged for crochet. I hope to have the Elizabeth Hiddleson page up on the new crochet bib soon. HUZZAH!!!

I also have the catalog up for Make It With Leather. I'm missing a handful of issues from this periodical.

MAY 24^th, 2019:

I've just finished cataloging the run of The Leather Craftsman I'm missing all issues after Sept. 1968, but at least was able to cover the first decade. I'll fill in more as I find them, and will work on cataloging "Make It With Leather" next. I'm trying to get the bib stubs started for several other crafts - Quilling, Leather Work, Crochet, Knitting, and Costuming. I have extensive skill in the costuming department, basic skills in the leatherworking, and an abiding interest in the other three. Have some patience - it takes a huge amount of work and time compiling and coding the entries of the main bib pages, and the only one of the new five categories that I have a solid library for is the Costuming.

APRIL 15^th, 2019:

My buddy Zendelle won a handful of BAMBINI, a small doll magazine that I've been searching in vain for issues of since I first started this quest. She won them in a raffle, and sent them to me! (Thank you!) .

MARCH 18^th, 2019:

I've filled in more of Burda's ANNA, but still have a long ways to go. I believe they stopped publication in 2016. They appear to hold their value really well(for good reason) and not only have yearly articles on tatting, but also have tutorials and patterns for bobbin lacers as well! I will continue to fill in as I can find issues within by budget's striking range, but this one will likely be a slow slog. A shame, since I think it is one of the more more brilliant mixed discipline periodicals ever put out...

JANUARY 19^th, 2019:

I've been asked to help get the word out on the tatting classes being offered this year at the IOLI Convention in Spokane, Washington(July 21-27, 2019). I'm happy to help! If you are a lace maker of any stripe - including crochet or knitting - you should check out IOLI. Their lending library alone is well worth the price of admission. Here's the information for tatting at this year's convention:

Tatting teachers are: Mimi Dillman, Karen Bovard Sayre and Natalie Rogers

International Organization of Lace, Inc., (IOLI) Convention

July 21-27, 2019

Spokane, Washington

https://sites.google.com/internationalorganizationoflace.org/2019ioliconvention/convention-info
(click on the black box in the upper right corner marked “Convention Info” )


Here are the classes:

Mimi Dillman will teach:
A502 De-Mystifying Cluny Tatting— Mixed (Beginner to Advanced) (Mimi Dillman) Mimi will show you how to make leaf tallies, called “clunies” in most tatting circles, on your hand with tips and tricks for leaf shaping and uniformity. While she makes them on her hand, Mimi will also introduce looms while you practice making the class projects. Shuttle and needle tatters welcome.

P602 Elements of Beanile Lace—Intermediate to Advanced Tatters but new to Beanile (Mimi Dillman) BEANILE Lace, invented by Nina Libin, is a unique lace beading technique using the structure of tatting to support the openwork. Most commonly made with metallic thread, the worker places beads on both the working and core threads, resulting in a lace made almost completely of beads.

While BEANILE is primarily a shuttle tatter’s technique, needle tatters can make the same pieces too with some extra patience and by choosing beads large enough to fit over the needle. Projects will be usable jewelry pieces ranging from single shuttle to others requiring 2 shuttles to make. We will explore common bead placements and joining methods while learning to read BEANILE pattern notation.


Karen Bovard Sayre will teach:
A513 Modern Tatting for Modern Tatters—Mixed (Beginner to Advanced) (Karen Bovard Sayre) Four Days of classes equals four different classes. Day 1: Karen’s Keltic Tatting features a different, simple way to create dimensional “Celtic Tatting” featuring two ways to capture/encapsulate chains within rings. Day 2: Three-Dimensional Split Ring Boxes will allow you to create a true tatted box in one round. Info will be given as to how to manipulate the basic design principle to create boxes of different sizes and dimensions. A two-color box will challenge the more advanced tatter. Day 3: Mignonnette/Granny Square Pouch features the basics of Mignonette Tatting to create squares and the triangular-shaped pouch flap, Split Ring Technique to join the squares together to form a pouch, and the use of a needle instead of one of the shuttles for the Split Ring round to facilitate joining. Day 4: Greek Key Split Ring Tatting. Create Greek Key designs utilizing split ring tatting in one of two ways to use two colors in a piece. This class is a fun way to combine colors in tatting.

P613 A Bounty of Tatted Delights—Mixed (Beginner to Advanced) (Karen Bovard Sayre) In keeping with the spirit of how our host state, Washington, is number one in the country in the production of many fruits and vegetables, this class is devoted to reproducing some of these wonders in tatted lace form. First we will create a Cornucopia utilizing two techniques (Interlocking Rings and Interlocking Chains) that will produce a visual textural effect that mimics a basket or horn-of-plenty.

Since Washington produces more apples than any other state in the union, we will create a “Spokane Beauty” apple using Split Ring Tatting Technique and introducing various ways to add-in/subtract-out areas of color to effectively “paint with thread.” (Fact: Washington is number one in the country in the production of apples, pears, red raspberries, spearmint oil, and sweet cherries.) Because our host lace group is the Walla Walla Lacy Lacers, we will also create the famous “Walla Walla Sweet Onion” in tatted form. We will create a tatted “hop,” as well as tatted grapes out of respect for the fact that over 77% of the U.S.’s hops for beer are grown in Washington’s Yakima Valley and Washington is the nation’s No. 2 premium grape-growing for wine production region. Any one up for a wine and beer tasting outing? Karen has some “acquired” expertise in the beer-tasting/appreciation arena.

W707 Teneriffe/Sol Lace—Beginner (Karen Bovard Sayre) In this class we will learn the basics of Teneriffe/Sol Lace, specifically the “how tos” of the technique. The class project features a more intricate center motif with simpler satellite motifs—all the basics of the technique. Instruction will be given in how to attach the sols together. We will be using plastic canvas forms as our “looms” to quickly create the lace. You will be introduced to different ways to manipulate the technique of Teneriffe/Sol Lace to use other forms of looms and how to create custom looks that will allow you to construct unique shapes and sizes of Sol Lace, including edgings. Nanduti Lace, the cousin of Teneriffe Lace, will be discussed, pointing out distinguishing characteristics, as well as how it is constructed.

Natalie Rogers will teach:
W712 Garden Blossoms—Mixed (Beginner to Advanced) (Natalie Rogers) Tat a lovely selection of blossoms from your garden. Patti Duff’s Sunflower will allow you to explore the beading techniques of raised beads and surface beads to create sunflower seeds. Creating the thistle will teach you a Turkish tatting technique that fills in rings with lengths of bare thread. I will provide a loom to help with this process. The rose’s stem will allow you to play around with encapsulation and the vapour stitch.

JANUARY 15^th, 2019:

We've waved goodbye to 2018 and plunged into 2019. I have several exciting big projects to accomplish this year. My buddy and finder extraordinaire, Becky, was able to contact the family of Myrtle Hamilton and get permission to scan and make available to everyone her huge catalog of patterns and articles on tatting! I've long been a firm fan of Mrs. Hamilton's work. This is a huge coupe for the tatting community and one I greatly look forward to completing.

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