Shuttle, Needle or Cro-Tat Hook?

 Monday’s post happening on Tuesday has thrown off my whole week. My humble apologies.  Today I want to discuss the three main tools for making the rings and chains of our tatted lace. I will start with the tool I know the least about. 

Cro-tat Hooks look like a cross between a small tatting needle, a crochet hook and the tool used in latch hook designs. From what I’ve seen in videos you form the loops on the cro-tat tool exactly as you would a tatting needle for the rings only. Then to work the chains you use the tool as a normal crochet hook and make as many chains as your pattern tells you for the double stitches. However, you cannot add picots using this tool. Instead you have beautiful handmade lace that combines the looks of tatting and crochet. I’ve seen some finished works online for cro-tatting and it looks beautiful. If only I could find a cro-tat hook for myself. 

I have more experience with tatting needles than the tool mentioned above. Tatting needles come in sizes meant to be coordinated with the size thread you use. If the thread laid side by side with the needle is larger in circumference than the needle your needle is too small and you’ll never be able to pull the needle through the rings and chains. The way needles are sized is similar to the way thread is sized, the larger the number in the size the smaller the circumference of the needle. The anatomy of a tatting needle is similar to your standard sewing needle with a slightly blunted head, the body and the eye. You thread the needle and pull at least eight inches of excess thread through the eye. This is because the excess ends up being your core thread. Depending on the size of the project you are working on you may have to retread the needle a few times. My suggestion is to do this after finishing a ring. This makes it slightly easier to hide the fact that you’ve added thread. You will hold the needle by the eye end and make your stitches at the head of the needle. To make your picots using this method you’ll be able to use the body of the needle as a gauge. Just leave a small space then start on the next stitch. Try to be consistent in the sizing of your picot. You can either use a pivot gauge, mark two dots on your finger to help you make them the same length or after you’ve gotten comfortable tatting this way eyeball the space. Eyeballing the space is never full proof for having your picots even, but it does mean less tools to have at hand for tatting sessions. The lace made using a needle is much looser in feel than that made by shuttle but for some projects I prefer this method.

Shuttles are the third tool for making tatted lace. This method makes the tightest finished lace pieces and is my favorite tool for most projects. I’ve recently counted my shuttles and was shocked to discover I own over 40 shuttles. And the best thing about shuttles is they can be “customized” to an extent. You don’t have to be stuck with a plain shuttle you can paint them, use midge proffered and scrapbooking paper to make designs on them, monogram them using cricut machine vinyls or even purchase already decorated ones from various tatting stores on Etsy. Shuttles again come in different sizes but, this just refers to the amount of thread they can hold more than anything else. Shuttles also come in posted, bobbin or thanks to designers at Handy Hands a posted bobbin. The anatomy of a shuttle is two curved blades ( top and bottom) that face each other with the curves bowing out. It would be similar in shape to a football except the middle of the shuttle is hollowed out except or the post or where you place your bobbin into the body of the shuttle. Posted shuttles have a center post that will, sometimes but not always, have a hole in the post you can thread a small amount of your thread through to help wind, or load, the shuttle. I prefer to wind my shuttles clockwise and though I’ve seen a few videos talking about loading methods I have experimented with counterclockwise and haven’t found much difference in the finished shuttle. It all gets loaded and maneuvered just the same. (Note: if there is someone more experienced with me that can help me understand why loading the threads a certain way is important, please help me. I don’t wish to give any false information.) Bobbin shuttles have bobbins that can pop out and be loaded with thread then popped back in for using the loaded thread. Now, one thing I forgot to mention is that some shuttles will have either a tiny hook or a pick on one end. The reason they have this is to help when joining ring by the picots. I will go into more detail on this in another post. 

For now friends I wish to say goodbye - happy tatting. I hope this post was not too long or boring.