Iris Niebach 

Tatting

I was born in 1953 in Freising, Germany, and I live in Prato, which is near Florence, Italy. Since I was a little child, I liked to work with my hands. I liked to design and to cut, and I was only 6 when my mother taught me to knit, and at the same time I learnt to crochet at school. When I was about 12, I liked to crochet edgings for handkerchiefs and I also liked embroidery. At 14 I embroidered a round tablecloth for a family in Great Britain, where I spent a holiday to learn English. At the age of 17 for family reasons I had to leave Germany and go to Italy. I married an Italian man in 1973 and had three daughters. When my children were all at school, I turned to school and then studied German language and history at the University of Florence.

My sister-in-law already tatted when I met her at my engagement with her brother. She tatted a lot of edgings and doilies and tatting has always been her preferred hobby. I learnt tatting from her in summer 1995. Some years later I attended an embroidery class and taught tatting to the same ladies. But after having learned, I didn’t know what to do with my new hobby, because the patterns in the magazines available didn’t please me. As my husband is a computer fan, I learned very soon to write with the computer, to work with a lot of available programs, also programs for graphics. This helped me in my studies and work, but permitted me also to find a lot of tatters, tatting groups, free patterns and books about tatting and I entered a new world of talented persons and fantastic tatting. I had made a lot of attempts to design, but was not very satisfied with the results. Then I participated in the roundrobins of Maus’s website and had to design and give my best. From that point on I continued to design and I now have published several books.

In 2006 I was invited as guest teacher to Denmark from the Danish tatting guild, where I taught a tatting design class, the designs of which have been published in the little booklet “Tatting together square motifs”. In Mars 2007 I was invited to Japan from the Japanese tatting guild, where I taught classes in different places, also a tatting design class. In September of the same year was invited from the Palmetto Tatter’s Guild to teach at the Palmetto Tat Days. In 2008 I have been invited for the second time in Denmark to teach how to make tatting diagrams with a designing program for computer. My aim is to give the tatting a modern style und renew and spread the interest for this marvellous craft.

Here are my two websites, www.iristatting.com, www.tattingonline.com/, and my blog, www.irisniebach.blogspot.com