Mom – She started it all!
Mom and me in 2011
One recurring memory I have is standing nose-high, when I was about six, on one side of the kitchen table with Mom on the other side. She made all of our clothes when we were children, so I would watch her cutting things out of fabric. The scraps were mine to keep!!
To this day, I lovingly blame her for my first addiction….fabric. (Side note….if you have this same addiction, I would NOT recommend that you get a job working in a fabric store, as I did in early adulthood. You will most likely not work for money!)
She also taught me to cross stitch, which was "all the thing" in the 1980s. I stitched a countless number of designs as gifts and home decor, using patterns created by others and eventually patterns I designed myself.
This is a picture of the very first cross stitch project I ever made.
Every project teaches you something. This project, right from the beginning, taught me that, in counted cross stitch, you have to count very, very carefully. The border is off by one thread. I can see that “learning experience” to this day and it means a lot!
Dad - Important lesson from a woodworker
My Dad had a great influence in my development as an artist as well.
He is a very talented woodworker, so I grew up with a great appreciation of wood. Wood is a much less forgiving medium than fabric or thread. Dad taught me the value of “patience” from a very early age.
He made this chair version of a cross stitch hoop holder (aka a “fanny frame”) for my Mom in the mid-1970’s. When she upgraded to a new black walnut fanny frame, Mom and Dad decided to give me her old one (made out of maple). He engraved it, and that was one of the best gifts I have ever received!
Shuttle tatting is MAGIC to a little girl!
Aunt Merc - My Tatting Inspiration
Aunt Merc and me in 1976??
Aunt Merc was a lady who lived next door to us when I was
growing up. She actually wasn’t related to me at all. She and her
husband did not have children. They both loved me and my sister, wanting
us to call them “Grandma and Grandpa”. We already had three sets of
grand/great grandparents at the time, and Mom thought that would confuse
us. So we called them Aunt Merc and Uncle Ray. Mom would take us
next door every evening to visit them; they were in their 80s when I was 5 or
6.
Every memory I have of Aunt Merc involves her with a tatting shuttle in her
hand. Anyone who has watched someone shuttle tatting knows that it
doesn’t look like you are doing anything at all, except throwing this metal (or
plastic) object around between your fingers with some thread attached.
Aunt Merc was almost blind at this time. The thread she used most of the
time was size 80…..for those unfamiliar with thread types, think - “sewing
thread” thin. She tatted by feel.
I was an impressionable little girl. Seeing this lady I adored throwing
this little tool around with some thread and watching the beautiful lace appear
from within her hands captivated me. I think this was when I started to
believe in magic. I know that sounds weird. But again, if you have
ever watched someone do this, it does look like magic.
That was almost five decades ago, and it still seems like magic, as I watch the things I can create with thread and a shuttle. I think of her often and wish I could talk to her about tatting, and everything it has become. I didn’t have the opportunity to learn from her. I had to teach myself as a young adult.
Today, tatting is like yoga with thread to me. Whenever I am stressed or don’t feel like doing something else, I come back to tatting and it calms me with its soothing rhythm of motions, creating knots into rings and chains, that magically creates something beautiful.
Aunt Merc inspires me to keep this lovely craft alive. Contrary to what a lot of people think, tatting is KNOT a lost art!
Grandma - My Very First Sale in 2004
Marjorie Blum 1923 – 2008 (Grandma)
I taught myself how to shuttle tat out of the one library book I could find in 1995. I was determined to learn how to make the lace I remember watching Aunt Merc make. It took me almost a month to figure out the “flip” of the hitch knot that tatting is based on, but I did it eventually, and boy was that a great day!!
Fast forward to 2004. I had been practicing tatting since I learned how, making scraps of this and that for myself while trying to advance my skills. At that time, it had never occurred to me to sell any of what I had made. During that year, I had started making tatted earrings. Just a basic four ring design, some with seed beads, some without.
In December of 2004, I showed some of these earrings to my grandmother. She promptly offered to buy a pair from me, and I had made my first sale! Looking back on that now, I know she was the reason I started my “tatting career” in the craft show circuit.
In 2005, I heard about a craft show being sponsored by the local fiber guild. Mom and I showed up at the local church where it was being held on sale day. I set up my plastic folding table and proudly displayed my tatted earrings. I sold enough pairs to cover my table cost and a little extra, and I loved every minute!
There are many people who only sell online and have never been part of the craft show environment. This face to face selling is amazing, because I can demonstrate tatting the entire day and talk to people who are just as fascinated as I am about what can made with knotted thread!
Carol Sotkiewicz- My Paper Quilling Mentor
Carol Sotkiewicz 1939 - 2022
I have always been fascinated by paper quilling and the intricate look of the rolled paper shapes. I felt that the rolled paper shapes of quilling and the ring and chain shapes of tatting seemed very similar. They complement each other beautifully.
During my childhood and young adulthood, I watched my Mom collect many quilled floral arrangements, in shadowbox frames and 3D globes. Somewhere in the back of my head, there was the thought (and desire) that maybe someday I would learn to do this.
Carol Sotkiewicz was a well-known quilling artist in the Toledo and surrounding areas for many years. She was also a member of the Toledo Craftsman’s Guild, which I learned about and joined in 2005, after my first craft show success. I started doing the craft shows that the Guild sponsored after that.
Eventually, at a craft show in 2006, I started talking to Carol. I put it together then that she was the artist my mother had been buying from all those years. And….Carol lived on the street I grew up on. I had known her since I was a child!
When she shared that she was retiring from quilling and the craft shows due to carpal tunnel symptoms, I expressed a desire to learn her paper techniques. She agreed to become my mentor.
Somewhere around 2010, I learned of two international paper artists who had a great impact on me, Yulia Brodskaya and Anastasiya Bertova. I spent a couple years after that teaching myself everything I could think of to emulate their stunning works.
I feel very fortunate to have known Carol, who was a very talented and giving quilling mentor. She taught me valuable lessons about capturing the moments when you see them, because they might not be there again.
Me at a craft show in 2018
Knee Deep in the Hoopla
I grew up in the 1980’s. One of my favorite songs is “We Built This City” by Starship (1985). To this day, when I am “wading through some problem”, the phrase…..”knee deep in the hoopla” always pops into my head.
I have a “thing” about sheep. I LOVE them for some reason. They just seem to have a very innocent positive energy about them. I smile every time I see one.
This is a cross stitch project I designed around these ideas, with tatted lace accents, too!
As I write this in 2023, the world I live and create in is a much different place than the one in which I grew up. Sometimes I feel like this sheep, just trying to make my way through all the “stuff” to get to the good flowers!
I feel very fortunate that I had parents who valued creativity and showed their children this value every day. My art has saved me countless times. I can only hope to share inspiration with you, so perhaps you will find a smile today. :-)
Thank you for taking the time to visit! 😀