How I Became a Tatting Artist

That's "tatting" not "tattoo" artist!

If you ever visit my landing page here on Substack, you will find this description of myself:

Author of The Pursuit of Elizabeth Millhouse. Second novel, 27, now complete. Singer. Feral housewife--barefoot and dangerous in the kitchen. Original music, odd thoughts, thrifty ideas. Repository of obscure skills.

Repository of obscure skills is the topic of my story today. You see, I know how to tat.

This is likely a confusing word. However, before “tat” become slang for “tattoo,” it was the active verb for the activity of tatting. What in the world is tatting?!

In short, it is the art of lacemaking utilizing slip knots with two primary tools, either a long needle or a shuttle. Materials used are most often 100% cotton crochet thread but sometimes DMC floss, silk thread, etc…

A century ago and more, tatting was quite common, but it’s fallen into obscurity of late. However, there is still a very small group of devotees to the craft worldwide. You can pop on Etsy and type in “tatted lace” and a stunning array of beautiful tatted items will appear, anything from doilies to bracelets and earrings. A lot of these shops are run by Eastern European ladies, but also a good many Asian ladies as well, and I am always charmed by their skill and their original designs.

I only know shuttle tatting, as that’s what my teacher knew best, but I’d like to learn needle tatting one day because it offers more versatility. Fun little anecdote, my sister-in-law who also possesses this ancient skill, has informed me that needle tatting came first. But then ladies in high society decided needle tatting didn’t display their delicate and lovely hands as much as they desired, so they developed shuttle tatting instead. This makes me laugh every time I think about it. Vanity, thy name is woman!

Here’s the story of how I learned this skill and the sweet lady who taught it to me.

When I was five years old, my family moved to the outskirts of a little town called Pittsford, Michigan. This is a neighboring town to the more well-known Hillsdale, Michigan home of the politically-conservative Hillsdale College. My dad, feeling lead to the pastorate, had chosen to attend a tiny Bible college near there which was a part of a church ministry named Freedom Farm.

Prior to this move, my dad had been teaching at a private Christian school on the southwest side of the state. When public school teachers talk about being overworked and underpaid, I confess I have to resist the urge to chuckle into my sleeve. My dad was overworked and underpaid to a level no public school teacher has ever seen before. It was at this school where my dad quite literally lost his health. He was overworked and under paid to such an extant that he stayed up until at least 2:00 AM every morning grading and preparing for the next day, getting up as early as 4:30 or 5:00 to start the grind all over again. There was also no money for health insurance or anything extra. In fact, not one year after our move to Freedom Farm, my dad’s health tanked completely and he became bed ridden for months. But that’s a whole different story for another day.

The reason I mention it is because due to his teaching experience, the ministry hired him on as a teacher at the day school on campus, gave us campus housing and him free tuition at the college. In spite of the storm that was my dad’s failing health which hit us shortly after that move, I can tell you that I have the most beautiful memories of that place.

It was situated in some of the most beautiful Michigan countryside you’ve ever seen…rolling hills, dairy farms, little lakes, acres and acres of corn and sorghum. The campus, itself, was backed up against a dairy farm. We had gravel roads that were so bumpy, everyone had to drive slow. This made it extremely safe for kids to play pretty much anywhere on the acres of land the ministry owned. And play, we did! It was an idyllic place for a child to grow up. I drifted off in the summer to the sound of tree frogs singing me to sleep through my open window. I woke and looked out the same window on fields full of grazing dairy cows. I ice-skated on the pond that froze every winter behind the school, and went shooting down the big sledding hill at break neck speed on my runner sled we bought second hand. I caught tadpoles in puddles of stagnant water near the woods. I climbed to the tippy tops of evergreens, sat still as a mouse, and spied on unsuspecting passers by below, pretending to be a wild Indian and getting just as brown in the sun.

Our pastor who founded and ran the ministry in those days, had a heart of gold. He often let those in need of shelter stay on campus while they worked to better their lives. When I was around eleven or twelve, one of those souls made quite an impact on my life. Her name was Esther Griffith.

I’ll never forget the first time I saw her, going for a brisk walk along the dirt roads. She was well into her sixties or seventies and had a perpetual and sweet smiling expression on her face. She dressed so oddly, but I didn’t think much of it for I was considered an odd dresser at the time as well. She was so, so painfully thin, a stiff breeze could have carried her away.

If I were only allowed one word to describe her it would be “kindness.” She was kindness personified. Over the next weeks and months, our family got to know her as she would frequently stop and chat outside the house on her walks, but she never came inside. She wanted to, but she really couldn’t.

She was an early casualty of our increasingly toxic world. She was allergic to almost everything. And I do mean, everything. The chemicals in treated wood, any cloth fibers other than well-aired out cotton. She had only a small list of foods she could eat without becoming ill and had to rotate those to prevent developing an allergy to them. She could, for instance, eat some grapefruit one day without an issue but not the next. She’d have to wait until a week or so had passed to eat any more. She never bought brand new clothes or anything made of synthetic fibers. The chemical residue from cloth manufacturing, the scents and residue from chemicals used in the stores would make her ill. So she bought cotton clothing from thrift stores, brought them home and then hung them outside on a clothesline for several days before she would dare put them on.

She couldn’t live in just any home. The newer the home, the worse off she’d feel. She and her husband built a concrete block home just to keep her from getting ill all the time. To add insult to injury, her husband divorced her after twenty-some years of marriage…and kept the custom house.

Thus, why she found herself living out of an ancient camper in the middle of the coldest months of the Michigan year while she slowly built a new cement block home as funds allowed. The camper was old enough that any chemicals used in manufacturing had more or less become inert.

She was a beautiful soul. She had every reason to complain, but I never heard her complain, even when explaining why she had to lead such an unconventional life. I never heard her say a cruel or disparaging word about her husband. She merely gave the necessary facts when we asked why she was living in a camper. In fact, the man still came and visited her from time to time, and she’d bustle around waiting on him hand and foot while I tried to keep my scowl to myself.

Perhaps it was this beauty of soul that sought its outlet in creating beautiful things in whatever way she could . Her outward circumstances were, by necessity, spartan. Home decor and beautiful clothes or makeup were out of the question. But beautiful things spilled out of her all the same. It was who she was.

When I saw her unique skill, this strange and wonderful lacemaking called tatting for the first time, I couldn’t help but be mesmerized. She noticed and offered to teach me. In fact, she was quite overcome with excitement at the opportunity to pass on this obscure knowledge to a young person. So few were interested in tatting, and she had a burning desire to make sure the craft didn’t fall into complete obscurity.

So, every Thursday night for several years, I walked over to her little camper and later, her cinder block house. While her old space heater hummed and rattled away, we sat at the little built-in camper table and I learned how to make lace with my fingers, a tatting shuttle and cotton thread.

Tatting has only one basic stitch, but that one stitch is a skill that’s extremely difficult to master. And complete mastery is necessary or the whole thing falls apart. There’s just no scraping by with half measures. This is probably why most people just give up trying to learn. But I had the best, most patient teacher. Every time I made a knot that didn’t move instead of the coveted sliding knot, she would just hand me a pair of scissors to cut it off and tell me that though it might take a long while, I would master the proper thread tension, the deft flick of the hand and fingers, the just right movement required. And I did.

It’s been over twenty years since I sat in her quiet presence, first in the tiny camper and then later in her cinder block house, but I can still almost smell the place and feel the calm and peaceful quiet. (Yes, a home with next to zero manmade chemical compounds in it smells quite distinctive.) Sometimes we’d talk for twenty minutes and then sit in absolute silence for the next twenty, just working. I made so many beautiful things during those times. Things like these:

She’s gone now. When I moved away, we kept in touch for a while, exchanging letters. But as life happens, we fell out of the habit. I tried to visit her whenever I was back in town. Another friend and her neighbor informed me when she passed away. I was profoundly sad, but at the same time, so happy that her skill didn’t die with her. I hope that our weekly tatting lesson brightened her life as much as it did mine.

I hadn’t tatted anything for a long while, but picked it back up again recently while I was in Colorado for my niece’s wedding. My littlest niece, Arabella, happened to catch me at it and sat down transfixed. It’s rare that Arabella sits down at all. She is a busy six years old, full of fidgets and mischief, but she was so intrigued she wanted to try it herself. Perhaps she will become the next tatting devotee. I suppose it was her marked response to my tatting, that sent me down memory lane and got my mind churning on this piece today.

Of course, I can’t conclude this piece without a demonstration, can I? So, here’s a video of me tatting a pretty little lace heart…the first big project I ever attempted in the sweet presence of my dear teacher, Esther. Enjoy!

That’s all for now. Until next time, folks…

P.S. If you enjoy my weekly brain dumps, please consider upgrading your subscription from free to paid. This will help me spend more time writing and working to get my two novels published! In the meanwhile, thanks for reading every week. You’re the best.