One of my favorite crafts is crochet. In fact, I own a crochet guild in the state of Washington. “What”, you may ask, “does this have to do with tatting or showing off tatting?” Well one doesn’t usually have much to do with the other but, last week, I was at the Mariner’s stadium. I had a fantastic time but, didn’t even get to see the game. Now that I have you totally confused, let me explain what I was doing at the baseball game.

Four years ago, the powers behind the Mariner’s marketing decided to find a way to bring more people into the stadium during the week night ballgames. Thus, they created the Stitch n Pitch event. Each year (and always on a Thursday evening, here) a Stitch n Pitch ballgame is played. Those, who bring along their ‘stitching’ related crafts, to work on, get in to see the ballgame at a discounted rate. All are seated within a certain section and, before and during the game, are encouraged to visit the deck on the third floor. This is where fiber stores bring some fibers, kits, patterns, the latest trend in the arts, etc and set up mini stores. On this floor are also booths which promote interest into their favorite charities and groups (such as my crochet guild) are allowed and encouraged to bring business cards, flyers and display items-to sell-to promote their group. Mine, is a non-profit group which promotes the growth and spread of the art of crochet.

Last year was the first year that my group joined the Stitch n Pitch and we were granted permission to design and raffle an afghan with the Mariner’s emblem. Our permission was granted only for this one year and only for this cause. So, if you want to make something with a team design make sure that you get permission from whoever owns the copyright to that emblem, icon, character or whatever you want to use in your creation.

I understand that now, both major and minor leagues are hosting Stitch n Pitch events. So, check with the stadiums near you and see if there might be an event that you can bring your groups items to. Bring along your tatting. Demonstrate, teach, sell items of which the sales monies go to your group to further promote the interest, knowledge and growth of the art of tatting. I know that we did a lot of demonstrating and we even sold beginner LEARN TO CROCHET kits; which contained yarn, crochet hooks, a free beginner pattern and a email address to contact me for picture tutorials that I made just for the event. We sold these kits for only $2 because we wanted to make sure that we weren’t just giving yarn away to somebody who wanted free yarn but, we wanted to see that the kits went to people who were genuinely interested in learning to crochet. Something similar can be done with making tatting kits with shuttles in them. Get people to donate their unused shuttles, make up pictorial instructions with LOTS of pictures (people want to see all of the steps and not just the ‘before’ and ‘after’ like so many tutorials do), pulls off a good amount of good tatting cotton (good for beginners with a silky finish) and roll into a tiny hank and put all into a zip lock baggie to make your kits. Be sure to include simple patterns of lace. Students want to be able to complete something useable right away. This encourages them to attempt another step and to advance further into their tatting knowledge. Make sure to include a good email address so that, when interest flourishes, your new student can contact someone to learn more and possibly join a group.