Like most laces of that time, it was extremely valuable, exceeding gold in price. Fashionable ladies of that era had their portraits painted with jewel encrusted shuttles. The basic form of tatting remained the same until the Victorian era when a new method of attaching rings together was developed. As with most handwork, interest shifted as the 20th century began. Thankfully now there is a renaissance of fine handwork including tatting.
Tatting is made using a shuttle and a source of thread.
It is comprised of two basic stiched to form the double knot. All patterns are combinations of double knots and picots, the loops. The size of the lace is determined by the size of the thread. Thread ranges in size from rope to the diameter of hair. She in turn, learned to tat from a neighbor in Franklin, North Carolina when she was 5 years old.