International Tatting Day

Tatting, the process of making intricate, delicate, and elegant lace, is celebrated and practiced today on International Tatting Day. Lace tatting uses thread, fingers, and a tool such as a small hand or weaving shuttle. Twisted threads are tied around or through the shuttle, forming rings and semicircles, which are used to make lace insertions, arrangements, and edgings that can be stitched together and used to make doilies, bedspreads, collars, and more. Not only is there shuttle tatting, the original version, which uses a tool similar to a weaving shuttle, generally made of bone, steel, plastic, tortoiseshell, mother-of-pearl, steel, or plastic, but there is needle tatting, which uses a needle instead of a shuttle, and cro-tatting, which uses a small crochet hook.

Tatting may go back to fishermen who gave sections of their old nets, made of strings and knots, to weavers, who used thread to make finer loops and knots, the final result being similar to lace. Tatting really came to fruition in the early 1800s and then gained in popularity between the 1860s and 1880s. The shuttles got smaller over time, and the work began to look more like lace. Today, tatters celebrate International Tatting Day by making lace, organizing educational seminars and classes about tatting, and eating chocolate, naturally.

How to Observe International Tatting Day

• Do some tatting and make some lace!
• Organize or take part in educational seminars and classes about tatting.
• Eat some chocolate!
• Explore online tutorials about tatting.
• Take an in-person or virtual class about tatting.
• Find online tatting templates, such as from Handy Hands Tatting or the book Tatting by Anne Orr.
• Join a Facebook group like Tatting Chatting, Tatting Unlimited, Shuttlebirds Tatting Guild, and Just-Tatting.
• Check out more about tatting from The Lace Guild, The Lace Museum, Lacemakers of Puget Sound, and Tatting Corner.
• View and get some ideas from the lovelytatting Instagram page or pick up one of their books about tatting.
• Share about how you are celebrating, such as by posting pictures of lace you've tatted. Make sure to include the hashtag #InternationalTattingDay.

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