Tatting Heirlooms

Having mentioned that I have my Aunt’s tatting stuff I was encouraged to show them, so I am going to show my tatting heirlooms here. There are 5 of her shuttles and 4 of them are made of bone, there’s a stork scissors with genuine gold and then 2 hankies that she tatted. The one to the left is her own and I have no idea how old it is. The one to the right I think was made for me and in that case it is from 1970. She learned to tat when she was around 10 years or a little older so it must have been around 1927-1930 and she tatted on and off her entire life even though she could only see with one eye. I recall having seen her doing a few hankies and then doilies. Maybe that is why I like doing doilies because I sort of grew up with them and I got my first 2 doilies when I was a teenager.
She died in 1996 and I inherited all her tatting stash because I was the only one in the family who tatted. She was not able to tat the last year or so because she was getting senile and didn’t master the flip anymore. But she did experience that I had learned to tat a couple of years earlier and I think she was a bit proud that I wanted to learn her craft. She did try teaching me but it didn’t work so I went to classes one winter to learn it.
She also had 3-4 books and some patterns from older magazines, I even inherited quite a few balls of mainly white DMC thread in different sizes. The shuttles and books etc. are now good heirlooms for me and one of her Danish tatting books is the most precious book I have. It would have been nice if she could know how much joy tatting brings me and how important it is in my life, for me her stuff today is a very nice memory of her.
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Skytterne, saksen og lommetørklæderne er arvestykker efter en moster som lærte at orkere omkring 1927-1930 og fortsatte med det næsten det meste af livet. Sammen med nogle få bøger og mønstre fra forskellige blade er de i dag et kært minde om hende for mig. Heldigvis nåede hun at opleve, at jeg lærte at orkere og jeg tror hun var stolt af, at jeg havde lært hendes lille håndarbejde.