"But, really, why does anyone create? You feel a... a restlessness inside, a need to make something new, something no one has ever seen before. You want to add to the beauty and the richness of the world with a gift, an offering that is uniquely yours. It's an act of selfishness and generosity, all rolled into one."

-- Bruce Coville,
The Last Hunt

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

A Find!

Searching Barnes & Noble's website for "tatting" will mostly yield a bunch of books on tattoos. However, I did manage to find this little gem.


It's a reprint of a vintage tatting booklet; the original cover looked like this.


I do wish some of those vintage designers hadn't been so modest about publishing their names. Unfortunately no publication date is given, either. If anyone has the original and/ or knows when it was published, I'd love to know. I suppose we'll never know the author.

The booklet includes a variety of edgings and corners, tableware, medallions, and cord pulls. The cord pulls have the tatting attached to a bone ring (and back then it was real bone), only instead of making double stitches over the ring as we do today, the directions call for covering the ring in single crochet.

Here are a few interesting pictures.




I think this is a book I will have lots of fun looking at, even if I never tat anything from it.

5 comments:

  1. I have the original booklet. At least I think I do, the cover is the same. Mine says it was published (or copyrighted) in 1944 by The Canadian Spool Cotton Company. I have seen many of the patterns in other books.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Just in time I arrested the Dr. Strangelove Tatting Book Finger from pushing the key that said, "buy!"

    It looks good - and I have often wondered about it as I have seen the original on eBay. I will wait and see if you tat anything from this one!
    Ah, but self-discipline is good!
    Fox : ))

    ReplyDelete
  3. Cool! I wonder if I have that one? Time to go through my books again!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I have the original as well - it says 10 Cents on the cover. Ah, those were the days! :) I didn't know the Spool Cotton Company was from Canada - mine says Printed in the USA inside.

    Good luck with your tatting! (And your book - I understand how it is to get sucked into a good read.)

    Emily

    ReplyDelete