Is that tatting piece really from 1822?

The auctioneer looked closely at the framed piece he had just retrieved from the top of the glass case and then held it up high. It was tatting from 1822, he eagerly announced.

Right, I thought, and I’m sure everyone else in the room questioned his veracity, too. No way he would be holding a 189-year-old knitting piece in his hand. But we all knew that there was always at least one person (well, maybe two or three) gullible enough to believe everything an auctioneer said.

He started the bidding high. Then dropped it low, low and lower until he got to $5. What the heck, I thought. For $5, I’d buy it just to see what the piece actually looked like. So, I took the bid and won it. Click on the photo above for a full view.

This fabric looked to be silk. It was in a cherry frame that was in good condition, but the backing had been removed. Everything was separated – the frame, the tatting, the glass, which was dusty, dirty and affixed with a paper label with the year 1822 written on it. The tatting design had been attached to cardboard with packing tape around the edges. On the back were the words “Tatting 1822” written in pencil.

I had never heard of tatting until I started going to auctions some years ago and began looking at items other than artwork. I used to sew a lot, making many of my own clothes and enjoying it. I have also taken quilting lessons, where I made a few potholders and started a quilt but never finished.

But I had never been a knitter or a crocheter or a needlepointer. So, when I came across some tatting shuttles in a box lot once, I didn’t know what they were. They were shaped like an oval but rectangular, with two sides attached to each other by a narrow bridge. The ends were pointed. Some were metal, some were bone, but they apparently come in a variety of materials. They were no more than 2 to 3 inches long.

I Googled to find out more about them and eBayed to see what they were worth. I even blogged about the ones I had found, asking the question of how they were used.

The word tatting, according to one expert, did not appear until the 19th century but the craft of knotting threads went back even farther.

The craft seemed to be more associated with lace for edging but can also be used to make doilies and other items. It apparently flourished during the early part of the 20th century but its popularity then diminished. Another site described it as an old craft of making lace and other decorations, and said it was easy to learn. It doesn’t look so easy on this video, which showed that it does requires patience. Here’s a gallery of tatting designs.

The shuttles themselves are highly collectible. Here are some lovely ones. Here are some collectors, their designs and their shuttles.

Tatting normally consisted of a series of knots and loops, but the piece I got at auction looked more like a series of thin straight threads crossing each other and forming the outlines of squares.

I kept finding tatting shuttles selling alone at auctions or among sewing items in a box lot. But I had never seen an actual sewn design, until this one came up at auction. When I got the piece home, I looked at it very carefully. It had been applied to a pink satin fabric and then sewn onto the cardboard in a basic stitch that I recognized (and had used before). The tatting showed signs of fading around the edges and some brown age spots.

The design was symmetrical: a row of three vases of flowers, two identical ones on either side of a larger vase. At the top was stitched “18” in the left corner and “22” in the right corner. In between them were what looked like the initials “S” and “B.”

Maybe the piece was done in 1822 and by S.B. Now, I was intrigued, because I always want to know more about the people who held or used or made the items I find at auction.

Who was S.B. and why did she make this particular piece? I may never know, but it looks like the auctioneer may have been right.