I've been experimenting with expanding my tatting world into the needle realm. With four years of shuttle experience under my belt, I feel it's about time. I've made some interesting discoveries along the way.
A lot of the posts on forums, blogs, and such regarding shuttle vs. needle tend to be prefaced with "I've only ever used a shuttle, but..." or "I never could get the hang of shuttle but..." I didn't find someone who could speak authoritatively on both until I met a fellow tatter at a recent craft show. As a shuttle tatter, it blows my mind how easy it is to unravel--yes, unravel!--needle tatting when you've made a mistake. In fact, I asked my friend to demonstrate it more than once, just to get the full paradigm shift underway. Additionally, the smaller motions inherent to needle tatting suggest to me that it's significantly faster than its shuttle counterpart. It's also significantly easier for beading. On the con side, I wasn't aware of the difficulties inherent in creating rings and chains of two different colors while working on needles, and I don't like the idea of needing several different sizes of needle to handle different threads. I commonly work in anything from size 10 all the way down to size 80, my favorites being 20 and 80, which can all be handled by the same shuttle.
I'm still a raw beginner on needle tatting, being that I've only messed around with it for the last day or so. I got the hang of stitches and picots but I haven't gotten my rings closed correctly yet. I'm reminded of my initial struggles as a shuttle tatter--no teacher, no decent instructions--and countless "nooses" formed by rings that wouldn't close. I also remember the sweet, sweet smell of victory that emanated from that first closed ring...like it was yesterday...ah yes! You will be mine again, closed ring! You WILL be mine.
Are you ambittaterous? Have a preference for one or the other? I'd love to hear about your learning experiences, so don't be shy, step up to the comments!
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