Thursday, May 13, 2010

Drat and Tat



It's been a pretty difficult few weeks. My health has set me back to about where I was this time last year. Hopefully it won't take me that long to get back on the right track again. But enough about that. If you are interested, you can read more on my other blog.

Because I'm trying very hard to be positive right now (despite everything being so blah) something good did come out being in hospital. My room mate taught me how to Tat.

And, because tatting is something I can do with yarn that does not bother my arthritis, I'v quickly become obsessed with it.



It's absolutely amazing. You make this knot, and then with a slight flick of the wrist, you make the knot jump from one thread to the other. In that way, you can make knots with your working yarn, send them jumping to the other yarn and pull the working yarn though the knots it made. Sounds complicated. But I tell you, it wasn't difficult for me to understand once I saw it done. The moment I saw that first knot jump from one thread to the other, I knew this is what I wanted to do.

It's funny when you think about it - I'm not a big fan of lace. But I love tatting.




After playing around with some of the patterns in Mrs Beeton's needlework book (which are really easy to understand, not like modern day patterns) I decided that I wanted to make this (pdf).

To acquire the skills I need to make a TARDIS, I've been working my way though these AMAZING tatting lessons. Once I've perfected the split ring, I'll have to head down to my local yarn/needle work shops in search of some dark blue cotton (or silk) and probably more tatting paraphernalia.


5 comments:

BusyB said...

wow i never heard of tat i am going to have to look it up! You do a great job at it! Looks hard lol! Keep your head up!

teabird said...

A woman in my knitting group is a wonderful tatter. She tried to teach me - once - and I ended up with chattering teeth and very.large.knots. Now you've inspired me to start again.
ENABLER!

Josiane said...

Your tatting is delightful! It's great that you could see it done and get it so quickly. Knowing that you've found something you can do with fibre that isn't hard on your hands makes me happy. :)
Happy tatting!

Micky said...

omg a tatted tardis? Love it! Hope you feel better soon and have more beautiful tatting to show off.

Tat-a-Renda said...

Welcome to Tatland. I can see that it didn't take you long to get 'knotted' in the tatting stitches. Well done.