Before I Was Even Born

It was another long day yesterday. For those of you that have been following my dental drama, I got the permanent crown put on yesterday. It was shiny and pretty. I don't know if the guys down at the dental lab that make these things to custom fit consider themselves artists, but I do. When I got back my youngest started running a fever. It's probably just a cold, but she slept for crap last night. That means I too slept for crap. I got a hold of all but one winner yesterday and the prizes will start going out today. If you want to take me up on yesterdays pendant offer, remember it is only good until Sunday.

So I do have a tatting confession for you. I am not well versed in its designers nor the intricacies of it's history. Sure a few names are familiar, but for the most part, I just thought it was something interesting to try and flew from there rarely, if ever looking back. Every time another tatter mentions a book that is apparently indispensable, I must admit ignorance. Though I have begun to amass a small collection of vintage tatting books and PDFs, they are mostly from the turn of the century and the 40's. Of the more recent creators I know very little.

A few weeks ago a tatting friend I became acquainted with over at the flickr directed me to a book after seeing my new footwear pieces, so out of sheer curiosity, I bought the thing for $7 and it just arrived. It is simply called Tatting by Irene Waller. Since I bought it I did come across some information suggesting that she was a major influence in the evolution of tatting particularly in adapting the work beyond doilies and edgings. As I flipped through the pages of the book, I realized a few things. First, this lady was a little loony in her enthusiasm. She appeared to truly believe that tatting could be anything and she knew it was art. Next, I guess I am a little like her in that respect though I do not share her love for rough and odd fibers. The book was published in 1974 in England and it is VERY 70's and though I'm glad I picked it up, I don't see myself using it all that much except as inspiration.

Actually it makes me a little sad that even though I try to come up with my own new ideas and avoid being influenced by other current designers, I'm not as original as I thought. She attached some very bulky tatting to wedge sandals and has a few choker designs as well as some even more wacky ideas in the book. I knew I was no tatting expert, but this confirms that my visionary status in on weak footing as well. That won't stop me from trying though, you'll see.

Something Old, Something New

I love old books. I love thinking about who else has held it in their hands and read its words. There is a sense of history that just cannot be conveyed in a pdf. This is why I keep buying old tatting booklets. I'm sure that I could find their pages scanned online, but it's just not the same. I just got four new ones so old they have no dates on them, though a little research has them dating to the turn of the century. As I sat down to pick new designs to reinvent, I realized that I am hard on books, very hard. I decided that it was in the best interest of the books that I scan them and print out the scans to use instead of using the actual books. My tech expert husband found me a nice pdf compiler for the project and I got my four new ones scanned in yesterday. Of course now I need to scan in my other ones, before there is nothing left of them to scan.

That was my something old for the day, my something new is goals for the etsy store. The last ones I set were 400 sales by the end of the year and 3000 hearts for the store. Well a spectacular October, spurred on by tatted masks no doubt, resulted in the early reaching of 400 sales. I was going to revise the goal to 500 by the end of the year, but then the sales all but stopped. Instead I shall revise it to a more attainable 450. The 3000 hearts was supposed to be a ridiculous number, but a few prominent front page stints resulted in short windfalls of them. I now stand just 50 or so shy of that goal. I remember when I was about to reach 1000, I joked that I didn't even know 1000 people. I had assumed that I had reached a saturation point where anyone who would like my thing enough to favorite them had already done so. I guess I was wrong then and I hope I keep finding new people to impress with my tatted pieces.

I hope to have a few new pieces in the next couple of weeks based on these amazing old designs and the store should soon fill back up with pieces returning from their Steampowered vacation this week. I'm still don't feel ready for the holidays, but I think after today's election is over I can shift into gear and get there.