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UPDATE ARCHIVE for 2015

November 11th, 2015:

The Tatting Bibliography reviews have reached the 900 mark! This is due to the generosity of Carolyn Kotlas, who opened her library to me and provided many general needlecraft compendiums with a tatting chapter included, as well as my first chance to see Judith Connors' first book, and the one Sumi Fujishige I had never seen. I'm still looking for copies to buy for the collection - but at least we know what they look like now, and what we can expect to find in them! We have had so many wonderful additions this year, and completed magazine and newsletter runs I never thought I would. I have a great deal to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. You have my warmest blessings for your holiday seasons, and may they carry you happy and healthy into the new year.

October 30th, 2015:

I've completed "The Family Creative Workshop" catalog. This set of craft books from 1976 really grabbed me. It was published right in the middle of the creative explosion in fiber arts and consequently covers a lot of fascinating ground that people have largely forgotten already. If you're looking for some inspiration, tracking down this set could light the fire you're looking for.

September 5th, 2015:

Many of my friends are at Palmetto Tat Days this weekend. Anitra will be bringing back the latest crop of books, and from the talented Karey Solomon herself, the rest of the back issues of "Tatting Times Newsletter" so I may finish cataloging the run!

I've been working on adding stubs on the tatting bib page for all the foreign books Becky Clark has dug up. She has an amazing talent for research and no fear of Excel spreadsheets. With her many many hours of work, we've brought the bib page up to over 1000 referenced published works!!! Ten years ago I'd have scoffed if someone had claimed there were half that many as very unrealistic.


August 9th, 2015:

I've finished the review page and cataloging Teri Dusenbury's "TATbits Newsletter" . I'm very excited to add this bit to the big picture! THANK YOU for this amazing donation to the Bibliography Project! I have a bit of a craft crush for Teri Dusenbury's genius, so this was a true treasure for me.

I have also added the oldest book in the collection that includes tatting instruction - from 1843! THE LADIES' WORK-TABLE BOOK does not give an author. The url for Martha Ess' wonderful analysis of many of these oldest books(including this one!) is included at the bottom of the review page - I highly recommend it.


July 18th, 2015:

I've finished updating Karey Solomon's "Tatting Times Newsletter" review page. A very generous friend has donated her issues to the Bib Project, along with a lovely stack of Teri Dusenbury's newsletter! I am deeply humbled by the gift, and hope I have done a worthy job of cataloging them for posterity!


July 10th, 2015:

We are now at over 800 reviews on the tatting bib page!!! I haven't counted them up yet, but I believe we may be over 1,000 entries - that's over 1,000 books and magazine titles that cover the subject of tatting!!! If someone had told me there were that many books on tatting in the world I'd have laughed and asked the person if I could have some too...

It continues to be incredibly busy - I'm working hard to get all the materials that have been pouring in lately catalogued and segregated for processing so that I can get them processed eventually without losing track of what I have on hand. There have been many very generous donations lately of rare newsletters and such that have to be handled with care - THANK YOU for your generosity. I am deeply grateful.

Thanks to Inge for letting me know the slideshow was broke. I believe it is fixed now. If anyone sees any further problems, please let me know!

June 12th, 2015:

I didn't think it possible, but the tatting bib reviews count has passed the soft toy bib reviews count. That doesn't mean there are more tatting books than there are soft toys books. It means I've put more money and energy into putting together the tatting books - and it was my earliest collection of craft books, no matter the humble size.

Someone contacted me to point out the magazine catalogs can't be reached easily from the home page, and she's right. So I'm going to build a page with just the magazines listed and put a link up at the top so that those people only looking for a magazine can find them without having to guess which craft bib it would be most likely listed with. This may take me a while, as I'm swamped with new materials at the moment and it will take several months to get the materials logged and organized for cataloging. That has to remain the priority, or I'll quickly lose track of stuff. Just remember one of Murphy's rules: The magazine you are trying to find information on will be the one I'm missing. Please do keep checking back. I'm constantly adding new material and filling holes. It will eventually be there...


May 19th, 2015:

Eeeeeh! I'm so excited! I love antique books and magazines, and it has annoyed me for years that I've been unable to acquire even a single Mdslle Riego book. The one time I came across one, I was outbid at an appalling amount of money(Whoever won it, please forgive me). I have one(1) reproduction from Iva Rose Publications - who does an excellent job and has an impressive catalog of available reproductions - but I like holding history in my own(cotton glove-covered) hands. I have one really cool English antique that was contemporaneous with Mdslle Riego... and I found a small hardcover book that predates the Riego's by six(6) years!!! Becky of the amazing keyboard fu was able to track down several references to it after we had the title and publisher, but I've never seen it mentioned anywhere until this copy was discovered at an estate sale. Becky has graciously given permission for me to add her research to the review page: "Embroidery On Muslin, Lacework, and Tatting" by An American Lady

I am proud to add this small piece to the bibliography, and am working to publish a reproduction of it to make it available to everyone with an interest, and to help support the Bibliography Project. I run all of this on a shoestring budget, and have gotten to a point where it would be really helpful if I could use more of my paycheck for silly things like groceries and a new second-hand car. Anyone wishing to preorder their copy should get in touch! I will be putting out a hardcopy only.

I've just finished reviewing the tatting books of Sharon Briggs - a really solid designer with lots of projects packed into the pages of her books.

May 6th, 2015:

The Tatting Bibliography now has over 700 REVIEWS!!! If someone had announced to me a decade ago there were so many tatting books in print, I'd have laughed and suggested they needed to stay out of the sun and not skip their meds. I'm grateful to IOLI(International Organization of Lace, Inc) and their lending library, and Anitra Stone, who has also been providing books from her personal collection for review and cataloging. Aaaand I still don't have the "Modern Priscilla" 's done. I've had so many books to add that I haven't had a chance to get back to the task of cataloging magazines! I will hopefully be able to get back to them shortly. I have, however, added more issues to the "Lace Crafts Quarterly" catalog. I don't know when that run ended, so I don't know how many issues I'm still short. I am at the very least missing one issue- the Spring 1990 when they changed the title to "Lace & Crafts". Can anyone enlighten me?

I've been working on an organizations page for the various craft disciplines I cover here. If you are part of an organization and would like to see a link here, please contact me with details.


Mar. 28th, 2015:

I've got reviews and a partial catalog up of two of the self-published tatting newsletters: 1) Mary McCarthy's "Knots!" Newsletter and 2) Karey Solomon's "Tatting Times Newsletter" . Loved them both - and for different reasons. Mary was so helpful, and sent me what indexes she could dig up - that was several computers ago, so she put some real time and effort into helping out.(Thank you, Mary!)

If you need to contact me, use "akamoraih[at]gmail[dot]com" and you know to replace the "[at]" and "[dot]" with the appropriate symbols, right? Spammers look for those symbols when trolling for addresses to try - hence the dumb encryption.

Mar. 14th, 2015:

KERSTI and Becky of http://www.Craftree.com/ fame have been exchanging information with me to help complete both our bibliographies(Thank you, Kersti and Becky!). I've added about 50 new entries to the tatting bib page! And you'll be seeing my reviews in the Craftree library! That means more books to look for review copies(false sigh). Maybe Anitra has them? Anitra Stone has also been providing a steady stream from her personal library - so "Modern Priscilla" still isn't done. Sorry about that, but I want to get Anitra's books back to her as quickly as possible.

I also want to personally thank Carol Winandy of TATSY for so generously donating some of her catalogs so that I could complete the listing of her wonderful "TATSY KITS" ! She was very kind and patient with the request. I've been collecting these kits for many many years whenever I ran across them - and still have almost half of them to go! And she did a cloth doll kit! I had no idea. That doll kit is now at the top of my wishlist... Carol still has a few tatted ornament kits left and really useful tatting notions she is selling on ebay. Just search "Tatsy".

I've just gotten in about 70 more "Needlecraft: Home Arts" from the 1920's to late '30's. I'm really happy about this, despite having to spend another $400 on mylar bags and acid free boards in the near future.

And thank you all for the little notes of appreciation I've been getting - they really help keep me going. I've even had the premiere of a new magazine sent to me for free to be reviewed! Evidently I've "arrived" as a critic(laughing). I do my best, but remember my two (faux)golden rules: 1)Murphy insists the issue/book you're looking for will be missing from this bibliography, and 2) It is always wise when reading someone else's opinion to excercise a healthy amount of skepticism. There's a third rule I'm debating on adding: 3) If I manage to misspell a name, it's gonna be yours.

Mar. 2nd, 2015:

Anitra Stone has very generously given me access to her massive tatting library! I can fill in quite a few blanks for books I've never been fortunate enough to run across myself. This is a really big deal to me. These books are irreplaceable or I'd have them already! Reviews on books from her library will be marked as such. I will continue to look for copies of my own of those books, but at least the bib info about them will be available to everyone right now! Thank You Thank You Thank You, Anitra! You ROCK!

I had a link sent to me: http://wandasknottythoughts.blogspot.com/ In Wanda's February 28th, 2015, I got my first unsolicited review! She was very kind. (Thank you, Wanda :) )

Feb. 16TH, 2015:

The sale at the shop went well, but I was exhausted - so I spent the week fiddling with format in the tatting bibliography and moving sets of books to their own pop-up pages. All of the tatting material is still accessible from that page - you just won't have to scroll past endless numbers of "Coats & Clark", "American Thread Company", etc. to get to other books. I've moved all sets to their own pages that seemed reasonable, and a few authors with large numbers of publishing credits to their name like Mdlle Riego, and Karey Solomon. I can't believe I've actually reached 600 reviews on the tatting bibliography too. Three Cheers for Obsessive Compulsion! Now it's back to my beloved "Modern Priscilla"...


Feb. 4TH, 2015:

I've reached the 600 review milestone in the tatting bibliography!!! I'm really happy and excited. I've also been working steadily on the "Modern Priscilla" magazines and have gotten up to 1921 in my run. I'll be taking a break this week to help Rick get ready for his pre-St. Valentine's Day sale at Foundation's Edge in Raleigh(his comic shop). If you live in the area, feel free to stop in and introduce yourself. We're a friendly crowd. I also want to give a personal THANK YOU!!! to Anitra Stone for taking the time to go through her pattern book collection to pull bib details for me for the tatting page. I knew there was a lot of stuff I had no clue about, and she has been proving it with the list she sent me of just half-size booklets I'm missing. STILL a work in progress...

Thank you, Kathie, for the correction on the two Cradle Creations, Inc. booklets - I misattributed the authorship on both, and Kathie caught it. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. I greatly appreciate your bringing it to my attention!

Jan. 4TH, 2015:

I've finally got the batch file uploading sorted out on the new computer, so I can get all the work I've done that's been piling up added to the bibliographies! I've also discovered that what works in test on my computer doesn't necessarily work once I've got it uploaded, so bear with me as I go through all the bibs and review pages I've uploaded to find and fix any problems. There are now well over 1,000 pages, so it's going to take me a while. It's mostly scans of covers that aren't showing up. If you come across a link that isn't working, please do let me know so I can get it fixed asap. I'll post a notice when I believe I've got all the other problems fixed. After that, if you see anything else - missing pictures, info errors, etc., you'd be doing me a great service by notifying me.

Jan. 1st, 2015:

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! You have my warmest wishes for all your creative endeavors. I am still working on the "Modern Priscilla" run. The more I get done, the more I really wish I had them all! It's a marvelous magazine, with a plethora of articles on a wide variety of vintage needlecrafts. I'm also excited about getting a complete run of "Bead & Button" up to June of this year!!! I am still working on getting a handle on the new computer and upgraded software. I have a ton of stuff that I need to get uploaded - 100s of files are piling up that I've done work on. My server host has excellent tech support, so hopefully if I can just spend a large enough block of time at the computer, they can get me straightened out.


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