My name is Iris Gudrun Niebach.I was born in Germany. Music was one of my family’s most important hobbies. I learned to embroider and knit from my mother, since when I was a young girl. During my adolescence I made embroidery and crochet lace on the handkerchiefs, even though it was very difficult to find the thread. At the age of 20, I married an Italian man, from Southern Italy and moved to live to Prato, Florence . My husband’s sister was great at crocheting and tatting lots of lace and beading, I would have liked to learn tatting, but I had no time available, being very busy knitting pullovers, jackets and dresses for my first After that experiece I started designing my own patterns and nowadays I have published a dozen of booklets with tatting patterns, ranging from doilies to edgings, from yewels to butterflies, from bookmarks to applications. When Iwas about fourty, I tried once to learn tatting from my sister in law, unsuccessfully. I tried again some years later and was really happy to learn the tatting knot from her. From then on I tatted a lot, but I was not satisfied with the patterns I found in the books of tatting. I tried to design my own patterns, but the first ones were horrible. So, looking around in Internet I found groups making round robins with tatted doilies. I was happy to subscribe and participate in some of these groups. The starting piece and the rounds had to be original, designed by each participant, because none of the models in the books could fit. So it was quite a challenge to learn how to design a really nice round. The thread was sent together with the tatted piece, but sometimes for trying out the round it was better to try with a thread of oneselves, because it took a lot of tatting and cutting away, before finding the best solution . This was a hard learning process. The wonderful doilies, which came out of these groups, were published, together with the models and everyone could work them. Sadly over the years the robins had lost interest and the doilies were lost. After that experiece I started designing my own patterns and nowadays I have published a dozen of booklets with tatting patterns, ranging from doilies to edgings, from yewels to butterflies, from bookmarks to applications. I was invited a lot of times from tatting groups to teach tatting. I have been two times in Denmark once at the Palmetto days in South Carolina , once in Ber k eley (California) at the Lacis Museum , once in Japan . I participated in a lot of exhibitions, in Horstmar/ Germany, at the Lacis Museum in Berkeley (California), in Italy in Matera and other little towns of the region Basilicata, and in Prato (Tuscany).