I wondered how I should title this post, "How would you tat if all your work was scanned?", "Wabi Sabi Tatting", "Is perfection what it is cracked up to be?" Many of you thought I was trying to prove a point, but that is not why I did this little poll. I did it purely to satisfy my own curiosity. Are people naturally attracted to one type of tatting over another? With the advent of the Internet and scanners, our work can be more highly scrutinized than ever before. Many of you guessed that there was frontside/backside tatting involved here...but I tell you now, there is MORE than that going on in this example. Thank you to everyone who voted. At the time of this post there were 172 votes; essentially 75% of people liked example A. and 25% liked example B. better. Frankly I was surprised that 1 in 4 people liked example B. better and that made me wonder if they were trying to prove the point that they don't care for frontside/backside tatting. But overall it seems like people are more attracted to "perfection". As a Master tatter I feel an obligation to share my knowledge and strive for my personal best in tatting.....BUT.... I will say this and you can quote me, "I don't care one iota how other people tat". If you are tatting at all then I am super stoked on you! Nope....I'm not one of those who gets my panties in a wad over these little details. I will never judge someone else's tatting...(unless I'm getting paid to do so.) So, from a teacher's perspective, and for those who DO like to get caught up in all the details, the following may be of interest. Firstly we will address the obvious frontside/backside differences. So in case anyone is lost, example A. is tatted with all the little tricks I will be covering. And example B. is just your everyday normal old school style of tatting. You can tell the difference between frontside/backside tatting. Example B. has the half stitch where the chain starts. If you care, this is extremely simple to remedy, just reverse the order of your stitches on your chains. Another way to tell the difference between frontside/backside tatting is how your picots look. Did you know that there is a front and a back to a picot? ...and I don't think this even needs an explanation. Now on to the other tricks. Dropping your shuttle through your ring before closing it does make a slight difference. You can see in example A. that doing this forces that last stitch to the front so you can see it whereas in example B. it gets a little twisted and becomes lost. And finally....and probably my new favorite is KrystleDawn's method of the LHPJ "Larks Head Picot Join", which as she puts it, "Puts the belt on the pants of the double stitch"...or something to that effect. Feel free to chime in Krystle! I swear, every time I do this stitch I think to myself, "How in the world did she come up with this...she must be some kind of mad genius!" Anyhow, with just a little bit of practice all these things are quite simple and can become part of your normal tatting.....or not. It's up to you and you are the most important and most qualified judge of your own tatting! The bottom line is that tatting should be fun and enjoyable so tat the way that makes you the happiest!!!!!