Monday 6 February 2012

R 5, p, 5, p, 5, p, 5 Cl

I had no idea there were so many different forms of lacemaking until this past weekend, when I went for a lesson in tatting. My mom has been keen to learn shuttle tatting since having her appendix out as a child and watching the nun who sat with her in the hospital making lace in this way. So I tagged along, but opted for the easier needle tatting.

We were expecting to be part of a group of tatters, but as everyone started pulling out their work we saw Carrickmacross and Romanian lacemaking, Irish crochet lace, weaving and Tunisian crochet, as well as surface embroidery and stumpwork being done. I saw and heard about techniques I'd never come across before, which made for an interesting morning.

So my first attempt at needle tatting goes a little something like this (a butterfly):


And then I got on to creating a border, although I confess this is my second attempt:


There's something of crochet about it, which interests me. But there's a lot of knotting and fiddling with long threads and concentrating on tension too, so we'll see. Whether or not needle tatting ends up being a regular in my arsenal of techniques remains to be seen, but for now I'm simply enjoying learning a new skill, and seeing and hearing of other people's adventures with needles.

1 comment:

Liz said...

I tried my hand at tatting once. I lasted about two hours. Then I was done.