This morning, I started a bijou little teapot with what I had immediately at hand (i.e. within a foot of my tatting chair); which turned out to be about a yard of blue Anchor Mercer 20 and the remains of a ball of yellow Hakelgarn 20. I knew it would not be anywhere near enough, but also figured that I probably needed to rehearse the folded ring spout. Of course, the spout came out right first time and I ran out of blue thread about a third of the way into the pattern.

As I painstakingly made the last little bit of blue take me to where I could add some more (thus wasting quite a bit of time), it occurred to me that not enough is said to beginners in any discipline about learning to deal with abnormal situations right off the bat. Knitting, for example, is fraught with stress, hand wringing and frogging until one learns to ‘read’ one’s knitting and implement the drop-down repair. In tatting, one might as well master all manner of thread hiding and adding from the get go. Unless, of course, one totally relishes tatting the same thing over and over until it is right. Granted, that in and of itself  is a good exercise, but a person can learn more from tatting new patterns than from repeating an old one over and over. For any new tatters reading this post who might be wondering where to find everything you need to know, and are afraid to ask, about ends and additions, Judi Banashek’s book: Impeccable Tatting is the reference I use most often. It is available from Handy Hands.

May I present the Tiny Round Teapot (joins and all), without benefit of blocking

tiny-round-teapot

The pattern is in Tea is for Tatting by Martha Ess, which can be ordered on her website.  Now I happen to have a thing for teapots but, even if I didn’t, I would not have been able to resist this book.  This little teapot is just one of the quickie patterns.  The real attraction is in some stunning complex ones that are truly thread art.  Go check it out, if you haven’t already ordered it.

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