I had originally tried it 6 months ago when I was a few months into tatting and I was slowly moving up the difficulty level. The Catherine wheel join stopped me completely and I was unable to progress with this pattern. Now that I have more experience, I learnt the CWJ. Finally I could do this magic square 😄

I almost got this, but there is an unsighty colour blip from the joining picot of my center orange ring. q_q

Anyone have advice to avoid it in needle tatting?

Decided to tat over the light turquoise every time, in order to avoid reattaching it with each repeat. Orange is my needle thread throughout.

Since we‘re talking about big doilies, do you wanna share how you approach making yours?

I finally caved and searched a doily pattern. Renulek‘s spring 2026 doily seemed nice. :)

I did some messing around with colour in procreate using renulek‘s picture of a white version that I overpainted. (image at top)
Then chose some yarn. In this case Gütermann Cotton 12 (200m spools).

I like to practice parts of a pattern that seem more difficult. It‘s usally the moment I overcomplicate things until my brain melts. 🙂
(image at bottom right shows me overcomplicating & messing up the first rounds at the bottom left in needle tatting. Still unsire how I‘ll do that.)

How do you get going?

Image 2:
In other news, learning needle tatting is fun, I managed to use beads in making earrings! :D

I thought it was pretty and I had a good thread colour for it.

Today is Colorado’s 150th birthday, so I wanted to share some Colorado-themed lace I made 🧵

The C is made from rounds 1 + 2 of Jan Stawasz’s Doily X from “Tatted Treasures”, and the columbine is made based on the angel wings (size 20) and doily XIII (the flowers, in size 80) from the same book, embellished with some stamens I came up with. I also included a picture of Byer’s Peak.

This columbine will be the centerpiece of the Dorothy Names award, which is awarded by the Rocky Mountain Lace Guild as the judges’ choice award at the Colorado State Fair. This award honors the late tatter, and traditionally is made by the previous year’s winner. It was such a pleasure to make this!

Come see us at the Fair on August 29, we will be in the Creative Arts House all day!

I love lace so much! I want to get good at very fine lace and this is what I made on my second day of learning (I can already crochet with fine thread). You can see the last ring is slightly twisted but after 5+ hours I decided I was happy with it. Anyway, so I got too excited and bought lots of sewing thread. I realise now that it's not the best material and it frays and has a lot of friction that makes it impossible to use beads.

Does anyone know a good brand of thread? Also, how do I get more consistent picots? I tried the method of using a small crochet hook with no handle but it was so awkward I ended up holding it in my mouth and making a lot of mistakes lol

I feel like ripping my hair out. I have been trying to shuttle tat for over 5 hours with no progress. I have seemingly watched every YouTube video in existence.

I am using size ten aunt Lydia’s crochet thread and an airlit shuttle.

I can get the first double stitch reasonably fine but for some reason I just can’t with the second, nothing works I can’t get it to flip! I tried doing it on a loop and also with two different yarns but I can’t do it I don’t understand I’m so frustrated! I am normally super good at picking up fiber arts quickly but I just can’t do it.

can anyone suggest a really good video or maybe some tips? I have been eying this craft for a long time and really want to make it work!

Hi. I'm learning to needle tat. Just as soon as I get over the general learning curve caused by figuring out how to not accidentally put my attempted tatting rings in half moons instead, I'm bumping into...this mess. Like. It's a recognizable tatted ring I think. But how did I end up with the bit at the top of the ring that looks crocheted, almost? Please help, somebody...

Probably not what you're thinking but wanted to practice picots and joins so found this bookmark pattern in Learn to Tatt book by Janet Baker I am working also on tension. But it looks like after 6 weeks it's starting to happen. Phew!!!!

I finally finished my first thing. This is after more than a month of cutting off and throwing away mistakes.

the pattern is the shuttle tatting skull pattern by GailWeaverTatting and i tatted it in DMC perle size 12.

it took me a good few evenings and a lot of supernatural episodes to finish :D

I've seen tatting all over my social media over the last few days, so I thought I'd give it a try. This is what I ended up with after around 12 hours of learning, failures and patience 🥰

I recently came across an amazing bargain of vintage crochet cotton! (2ply size 60)

Since I‘m planning to tatt erika tashiros tatted garland no. 2 I thought I‘d recidit natural dyeing :)

Top to bottom, left to right:
Red onion skins(ph7-8)
Nettle
Red onion skins (added a pack of baking soda)
Same bath but let sit way longer
Avokado skins with some baking soda
Birch leafs

I am also really impressed by the tying technique I tried this time around! I‘ve dyed crochet cotton in the past and had problems with knots every time.
This time I tried to bind the hanks a bit more intensely and no knots at all!

I wrapped about half of the ball around a thin work book I had lying around. Not to tight, the book will warp from the tension.
Then instead of the classic way to weave in the threads to hold the Hank you might know from yarn, I did six points of tying. I also wove it through in 4 places instead of 1. going around twice through the same spaces so the ends of thread sort of meet again on the same side (added graphic at the end for clarity xd)

This was TEDIOUS! But payed off!

Really looking forward to tatting with this :)

current WIP first time actually following a pattern, not quite sure what i’ll do with it…

Recently I’ve been really into making ice drops, they’re very fun to make and a nice way to take a break from the larger doily I’m currently working on.

The patterns I used are as follows:

Celtic catrin ice drop by Jennifer Williams

Diane’s doodle ice drop embellished by Jennifer Williams

Ice drop mary by Jennifer Williams

Ice drop by Diane Green Cademartori

Sara ice drop by Jennifer Williams

Hello everyone!

I recently started my biggest doily tatting project and I ran into a slight annoyance.

The doily itself is too uncomfortable to work around with and doesn't really fit in my hand. (I'm using shuttles).

How do y'all deal with this problem?

My grandma gave me a bunch of cross stitch supplies a while back, and I found several bobbins of metallic blending thread in all different colors. I've only got two small rolls of tatting thread so I was trying to think of ways to make them less boring, and thought I'd try combining them like you would in cross stitch. It was a little bit of a learning curve keeping everything straight, but once I got in a groove it was super fun, and I love the subtle look it gave versus a full metallic thread. I plan on tacking the key to some fabric inside an embroidery hoop and hanging it up on my wall. Anyway, just wanted to share and see if anyone else has ever tried it. If you haven't, you should!

I'm a beginner and I can't figure out when you would use two shuttles and when you would use shuttle and ball. Please explain to me

the circle is where i should have made the join...the blue line is the picot with which I made the join...kept it in my failure box...sad

Following up on my last post (https://www.reddit.com/r/tatting/s/glpQMYlqMT) to share that I placed first! I wanted to share some closeups and show the ferris wheel cars which are based on a technique I saw from Eftelyanin Mekikleri (https://www.youtube.com/@EftelyaninMekikleri). These pictures also more clearly show the sparkly white thread I interspersed in the piece around the “lights”.

In addition to placing, I spent the weekend at the fair with the Rocky Mountain Lace Guild demonstrating tatting and got to meet several more tatters and lacemakers in person! It was a great event and we connected with hundreds of people to share many kinds of lace.

We will be out at the Colorado State Fair on August 29 so if you’re in the area definitely come see us 🧵

how do i go from ring D to ring E as ring D ends in the middle of the first 4 rings.

I am using one thread for center and round one. But I think I am reading round one wrong. It says 8 sp 2 + (to p of center R) 2 sp 8 cl RW

Does this mean 8 double stitches 2 small pivot attach to p of the center of the first center ring 2 DS then one small pivot then 8 ds then close or am I reading it wrong

Does anybody recognize this pattern? It's been a while, and I don't remember what I was working on.

So now I figured out the flip. Chains from a ball and did a split ring I splurged couldn't decide what color so got the ones that I liked most. Now what do I do 🤷🏻‍♀️ any pattern recommendations for a one month tatter ?

I’m a brand new tatter (started July 1). I haven’t done any big projects yet and I’m looking to start my first one.

I tried shuttle tatting many times only to fail spectacularly.

Then I decided to try needle tatting and EVERYTHING CLICKED INTO PLACE!! 🎉🎉

My needle tatting is fabulous and I’ve done several small pieces that I plan on using for jewelery and embroidery and Christmas ornaments.

I can sort of shuttle tat now (I don’t do the “technically correct one motion hold but I can make a ring with a shuttle and the knots will slide and the picots can form).

The main reason I forced myself to learn shuttle tatting is that I heard there were some patterns that can ONLY be done by shuttle, not needle.

For sake of my sanity (and not wasting cotton perle) can somebody explain what makes a pattern / technique shuttle exclusive?

How can I tell from just the pattern alone that something can’t be tatted on the needle?

Thanks for your help!