A New Thread: How I Found Tatting
It started with a bead loom.
I had been working in clay — pottery was my first foray into making — but I was looking for something different. Something more delicate. Something quieter. I craved a craft with a sense of precision, and maybe even a little romance.
I stumbled across the work of a bead artist using impossibly tiny Japanese Miyuki seed beads. The beads were so fine, they seemed to shimmer like threads of light. I was mesmerized — not just by the colour and pattern, but by the art of weaving: the thread passing over and under, one bead at a time, building something intricate from something so small.
When I finally got my hands on a loom, I loved it. The rhythm of weaving, the repetition, the way time disappeared while I worked — it felt meditative. But there was something missing. The rigid geometry of the beaded patterns didn’t feel like mine. I had always been drawn to the soft line work of a willow’s branch, the curve of a vine reaching toward the light. I wanted something that moved, that curled and meandered, like a slow breath.
So I started searching. Looking for inspiration. Somewhere along the way, buried deep in an online search for “Miyuki bead art,” I came across something unfamiliar: lace made with thread and beads. It looked like it was drawn in the air. Tatted lace, it said.
And I was hooked.
A Forgotten Craft, a Found Moment
Tatting — the art of making lace with a shuttle — is a craft with centuries of history, and yet somehow it still feels like a secret. In her book The Art of Tatting, Lady Katharin Hoare writes:
“Tatting—the genteel art of making fine lace with a shuttle—almost got lost in the rush of the twentieth century.”
It wasn’t always this way. Tatting once graced the hems of dresses, the edges of handkerchiefs, the doilies on parlour tables. It was passed down between women and made visible in the slow movement of hands. The patterns weren’t just decorative — they were a part of how beauty lived in a household. And even now, if you look closely, you can find fragments of this art tucked into antique books, museum drawers, and handmade family keepsakes.
Thread as Rebellion, Thread as Refuge
Instructional engraving from Tatting and Netting, 1895
There’s something quietly radical about choosing to make lace by hand today. It’s not productive in the modern sense. It won’t scale. It doesn’t need to.
In the introduction of The Art of Tatting, I found a sentiment from Her Majesty Queen Marie of Romania, who wrote:
“Nowadays work has become a great luxury, as everything useful and necessary is done by machines. Then let the luxury be as beautiful as we can make it.”
To me, tatting is more than a luxury. It’s a kind of resistance. A return to slow rhythm. A way of choosing stillness in a noisy world. When I tat, time bends. The shuttle moves like a brushstroke. Knots become curves. Curves become shapes. A design blooms from thread alone.
Another line from the same book captures the feeling best:
“Tatting has the charm of lacemaking and weaving combined. It is the same shuttle as in the weaving-loom, only that the loom is our fingers and the shuttle obeys our thoughts and the invention of the moment.”
A Beginning Unravels
I didn’t set out to revive an old art. I just followed what felt beautiful.
And that path led here: to The Scarlet Thread. A space to share what I’m learning. A space to slow down, one ring and chain at a time. A space for those who, like me, are drawn to quiet making and timeless design — to the way thread can hold a memory, or a mood, or a moment of joy.
This is just the beginning. I’ll be sharing stories from my process, reflections from history, and eventually: patterns, tutorials, and heirloom lace you can make or wear.
If this resonates with you, I’d love to have you along the way. Thank you for joining me.
~ Ashley Hope
