Tammy Stover Phillips of Monterey survived breast cancer and now finds joy in the gift of tatting
Story and Photographs by Amber Weaver
When Tammy Stover Phillips sat down with her 97-year-old neighbor to learn the art of tatting, she didn’t know then the impact the art would have on not only herself but nearly 2,000 people across the world in just a span of five years.
“To give is a great blessing, to pray for others is a greater blessing and the best blessing is when people say, ‘I think of you when I see your prayer circle, and I pray for you,’” Phillips said.
Blessed with angels
Phillips has been married to her husband, Keith, who is on the board of directors for Volunteer Energy Cooperative, for 36 years. They have built their life in Monterey and have two daughters and two grandsons. Together, the couple owns and operates D.M. Goff Funeral Home Inc.
“We work as a team and enjoy serving our families,” Phillips said. “We’re just blessed with so many people who love us and consider us family as we do in return.”
Those people, along with many new “angels,” as Phillips calls them, became key in her life when she was diagnosed with cancer in 2020.
How the circles came to be
Phillips found a knot in October 2019 and pointed it out during a regularly scheduled mammogram, but the results came back clear. Still worried about the situation, she pointed it out to her gynecologist the next month. At first that doctor agreed all was well, but after measuring and checking back in after three months, an ultrasound determined she had cancer. A biopsy confirmed it was Stage 3 breast cancer and that she would have to go through chemotherapy.
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After the initial shock and lots of time spent in prayer and scripture, one of Phillips’ daughters assured her how she was going to reach so many new people through this process.
“Well, you know it! I have to be thinking about what I’m going to give everybody,” Phillips responded. “Now, where did that come from, and why did I have that thought? I guess God was already starting to work with me.”
That thought is what spurred the idea of her prayer circles.
Tatting is an old-fashioned handcraft that creates lace-like fabric using thread and a small shuttle to tie knots and loops. It is becoming a lost art.
Everywhere she goes
Phillips’ prayer circles are created through needle tatting. It’s an old-fashioned handcraft that is essentially knotting and is becoming a lost art.
Tatting involves creating lace-like fabric using thread and a small shuttle or needle to tie knots and loops.
“It’s formed on a needle, and then I make rings and chains,” Phillips said. “The little loops on the prayer circle are called picots.”
It takes Phillips about 25 minutes to create these prayer circles. She starts every day by making two to add to her collection that is always with her.
“I carry my tatting everywhere I go,” Phillips said. “I have it with me wherever I am in case I have the time to make one or have the opportunity to share one.”
Giving and lifting up in prayer
After her diagnosis, Phillips decided who she considered to be her most special people — her husband, children, grandchildren and mother — needed to have their own prayer circles during what she knew would be a difficult road ahead for all of them. Then, she wanted to gift them to the people she encountered through the process.
“We would take those around town and ask people to lift me in prayer and remember me while I was going through my chemo,” Phillips said.
She even made sure she had colors available that matched the cancer ribbon color for the other patients she would see — for instance, pink for other breast cancer patients and yellow for those facing bone cancer. Now, she tats in approximately 35 different colors.
Not long after the prayer circle project began, though, Phillips wanted something to change.
“As I was giving them out and asking people to pray for me, I had the feeling come up on me that I was being selfish,” Phillips said. “That’s when I decided I was going to turn it so that it’s for everyone in the circle of need and hurt because we’re all in that circle.”
On top of handing out the prayer circles, Phillips began physically writing down the names of who she gifted them to in a pink notebook. She would then lift those names up in prayer.
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Through deep waters
The prayer circles have led Phillips through many times of need and ultimately taught her some valuable lessons. She has kept the prayer circles that are tied directly to those milestones — like the one she was making when she was understandably upset about what she was going through.
“I was screaming to God,” Phillips recalled in regret. “God, how can you not answer me the way I want you with all these prayer circles I have passed out? How can you not answer me the way I want you to?”
Another circle she kept is from a time right before she was heading to yet another doctor’s appointment. The thread had a knot in it. Phillips could have worked the knot back out, but instead she had a realization that she shared with her husband, and that circle is hanging in her home to this day.
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“God is showing me here that life is not perfect,” Phillips said. “I felt like God was speaking to me in that moment.”
One more circle Phillips decided to keep is tied to scripture. She always starts her day by reading her Bible. On that specific day, she was reading Isaiah 43, and her doctor called her with the good news that all the cancer had been removed.
“I sat and cried for almost an hour before I could even call my husband to give him the good news,” Phillips said. “This is a verse I hold close to my heart because I know God was with me through the deep waters and the fire of oppression.”
Prayer circles around the world
Phillips ended chemotherapy in June 2021 and has since been cancer free. Throughout the time since her diagnosis, she has handed out nearly 2,000 prayer circles, meaning she prays for some 2,000 people regularly. While many are in her local area, some have made it around the world.
“God gave me the desire to keep a list, and I have it in a pink notebook all typed and numbered of each recipient,” Phillips said. “I have been blessed to share with people who live in over 40 different states and several other countries, including England, Iceland, Ireland, Belize and the Philippines.”
Just when she was feeling on her heart that maybe her ministry was complete, a friend of Phillips’ best friend was about to begin chemotherapy and reached out to Phillips after receiving a prayer circle. The friend said it was the most precious gift she had ever received.
“I knew that was God telling me then that I was not done with this,” Phillips said. “I pray God blesses me to continue to give my prayer circles and that my numbers given will grow exceedingly.”
As she continues tatting through her life, Phillips hopes to one day have a prayer circle in all 50 states. When her time does come, though, she wants these prayer circles to be something she is remembered by.
“I want my family to display my list at my funeral as one of the important memories of my life,” Phillips said.
That way, the nearly 2,000 names can know that they, too, were prayed for during their time of hurt and need.
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