I ordered the two needle tatting books by Barbara Foster, which I can greatly recommend to anyone who tries this out. 0. Abstract Needle tatting is a variety of tatting that is worked with a needle instead of a shuttle. The way of working is different than shuttle tatting, especially since knots are not transferred from one thread to the other. I have found needle tatting to be not inferior in any way compared to needle tatting. It is possible to do every technique I know about with the needle.
Some techniques are easier to do with the needle, others are more difficult.
Needle tatting is fast to learn, and especially suited for yarn and threads that are difficult to work with a shuttle. For normal tatting with crochet cotton and other tightly plied cotton, linnen or silk threads I prefer to work with the shuttle, because the tatted items are crisper, and flatter than when worked with a needle. When you want to work the mentioned kinds of threads with a needle, you have only a small selection you can use without the tatting looking chunky. This document contains descriptions of my experiments with photos of the tatted items, and conclusions from the experiments for the practical usage of needle tatting. Some of the more difficult techniques are described by working instructions for a small sample piece.