Invasion Of The Tiny Tatted Doodles

I'm feeling a little unfocused this morning. I had a couple of different things that I wanted to write about, but they don't really form a cohesive entry. I suppose that doesn't really matter, but for some reason it just annoys me that I can't come up with a more structured piece. Well first I wanted to talk about some weird trends I've noticed recently at the etsy.

I've rarely visited the forums lately, so I missed a grand lot of unpleasantness that occurred last week. I did, however, find a few little things that are staring to annoy me. There appears to be a small rash of people mislabeling any old lace as tatting. This perplexes me, has tatting become a buzz word that people think will make some old machine made piece of lace sell? I hope that this is just a case of ignorance and that these people simply have no idea what they are selling. Of course that annoys me for a whole different reason. I even went so far as to inform a couple of people in the nicest way possible that they were not, in fact, selling tatting. I felt like a tattletale, but I just don't want people confused as to what tatting is and all this mislabeling is not helping.

The other weird thing I've noticed is what I'm calling the invasion of the little tatted doodles. Why would I be bothered by people selling tiny tatted scraps? Well, the truth is, it doesn't bother me so much as worry me just a little. My concern is that by selling these very cheap doodles, we confuse people into thinking that they are all you can do with tatting and that it is a throwaway craft. I'm sure I'm over thinking this one and the invasion could actually be a sign that more people are learning to tat and these doodles are simply the product they make well enough to sell. I actually hope they sell well enough that we see far more artisans using tatted bits to further expose the art.

In other news, I did a lovely custom necklace over the weekend. It's not the most amazing piece or anything, but I really loved how the color combination turned out. I guess that's it for the weekend. I've got a lot if work this week as I want make more masks for my Steamteam friends to take to the SteamPowered convention at the end of October. I'm still afraid I've made too much stuff for the event, but better more prepared than less right?