The February meeting of the Alamo Bobbin Lacers will be held at Mount Calvary Lutheran Church, 308 Mount Calvary Drive. The meeting begins at 7 pm but we are there for socializing and enjoying refreshments by a little after 6:30 pm. JoAnn Mozisek will teach us how to do hairpin lace. We will make a bookmark. The pattern calls for acrylic sport weight yarn in two colors: 20 yards of the main and 15 yards of the trim. JoAnn says Perle 5 makes a nice bookmark, too. An adjustable hairpin loom is needed and a “D” crochet hook for sport yarn or a #7 steel hook for Perle 5. JoAnn will bring extra looms and crochet hooks.
Remember, Alamo Bobbin Lacers will be hosting a Milanese workshop by Louise Colgan March 20─22. It will be held at the clubhouse at Los Patios where all of you have been before. The teaching will be 9:30 am to 12:30 pm, one hour for lunch break, then 1:30 pm to 4:30 pm. The cost of the class will be no more than $110 – less than $100 if we can fill the class with 12 people. Louise gives an enlightening and professional class and we hope you will be able to take advantage of this opportunity.
We so enjoyed the January program given by Cheryl Anderson! We made “hanky” bags from a cloth handkerchief and narrow ribbon drawstrings. Cheryl brought two sewing machines and an iron so there was plenty of time for each of us to sew. An eight-inch handkerchief makes a bag suitable for holding a tatting shuttle and small thread ball, small bobbin lace tools, or knitting ring place markers and rubber tips for knitting needles, for example; a larger handkerchief would of course make a roomier bag.
With the wrong side down, each of the four corners of a square handkerchief is folded to the center of the handkerchief so that they meet; now the wrong side is visible on top. The next step is to sew around the perimeter of the handkerchief at a distance of slightly wider than the narrow ribbon width. Thread one ribbon through that casing that has just been formed all the way around; thread a second ribbon all the way around starting at the corner opposite the one used for the first ribbon. After flattening the handkerchief tie a small bow at each of the two corners used for threading and trim the ends. Cinch up the drawstrings and a darling little bag with draped “petals” appears! We’ll have photos in the next newsletter.
Quilt Exhibition (Beverly Tschart)
The 4th Annual Quilt Exhibition is continuing at the Landmark Inn in Castroville through February 26. Hosted by the Friends of the Landmark Inn, all proceeds benefit the preservation of the Landmark Inn and State Historic Site. Numerous handmade quilts from private Castroville collections are on display.
On Saturday, February 13 at 10 am, Marcia Kaylakie, a quilt and quilted textile appraiser certified by the American Quilter’s Society, will give a lecture. Beginning at 1 pm, she will give oral appraisals. The fee for attending the lecture is $5 and an appraisal is $20.
At the last meeting, we talked about demonstrating during this exhibition. We decided to make this a goal for next year which gives us more time to create an exhibit of lace pieces plus more days of live demonstration. Each year this exhibit draws a number of visitors. Take this opportunity to go see it and perhaps take advantage of the quilt appraisal. The Landmark is on the Medina River, has a nice museum and is home to the oldest grist mill in the area. It would be a great Valentine weekend outing.
A Brief History of Tatting (Rayna Lewis)
Tatting. The Germans call it schiffchenarbeit, meaning “the work of the little boat” (the boat-shaped shuttle). The Italians call it occhi, meaning “eyes” (referring to the rings that make up the lace). The Turkish say makouk, their word for shuttle. The French and South Americans call it frivolite; the Swedish word is similar – frivolitet. The Finish call it sukkulapitsi, combining shuttle (sukkula) and lace (pitsi) – shuttlelace.
While the exact origin of tatting is unknown, it is believed to have evolved from knotting. Primitive decorative knotting similar to tatting has been found on clothing excavated from Egyptian tombs and referenced in ancient hieroglyphic texts.
Tatting, or ‘knotting,’ became popular in Europe in the 17th century when the Dutch, trading in the East, brought it from China. In England, Queen Mary was an ardent knotter and even inspired a poem, “The Royal Knotter,” (“…But here’s a Queen now, thanks to God, who when she rides in coach abroad is always knotting threads...” )
As a favorite pastime of the ladies of the English Court, knotting shuttles were elaborate and expensive. They were much larger than the present tatting shuttles with blades open at the end so that thick threads could be wound on. French knotting shuttles were even larger than the English ones. Ladies of the French Court used their shuttles as fashion accessories to show off their hands and make them look composed and graceful, as well as industrious. Shuttles were carried in ornately bejeweled knotting bags. A fashionable lady would not be seen without hers and many ladies had their portraits painted with their knotting bag and shuttle.
In the mid 19th century, with the help of several women, tatting took its modern form. The word ‘tatting’ did not appear in print until 1843. The ‘Ladies Handbook of Millinery, Dressmaking and Tatting’ was published that year, the first of many books on the subject. Until then, tatting patterns were handed down from tatter to tatter or copied from other tatting pieces.
In 1850, Mademoiselle Eleonore Riego de la Branchardiere, regarded as the mother of modern tatting, developed the picot and opened up a new world for tatters. Until then, rings were connected by pieces of thread. Mlle Riego’s development of the picot allowed rings to be joined to other rings. She wrote 11 books on tatting.
Mlle Therese de Dillmont made the next major contribution when she created the Josephine knot, a technique using two shuttles. She also wrote the ‘Encyclopedia of Needlework’ in 1886 (still available today), placing her chapter on tatting between crochet and macramé because she believed tatting was an “appropriate sequel to crochet” and good preparation for learning macramé.
In 1910, Lady Katherine Hoare contributed the last of the major advances to tatting when she invented the modern tatting shuttle, smaller and with curved hooks on either side to be used as a pick to make joins. The use of chains and working with two shuttles became popular. Lady Hoare collaborated on a book, ‘The Art of Tatting,’ with Queen Marie of Romania. Queen Marie believed “tatting should be done by the woman who can afford to stay at home and have ten or twelve children”! The book caught the imagination of the American middle class and popularized tatting in the United States.
Tatting was popular during the 1920s and 1930s but then went into decline, although it has remained common in the U.S. During the 1930s and 1940s tatting enjoyed a revival in Australia with many original Australian patterns. Tatting is currently being rediscovered. In the early 1990s, two mailing lists devoted to tatting were started and are now major tatting websites/gateways: InTatters.com and TatChat.com.
Christmas Partiers - 2009
Posts
