A short introduction and history

I am a bit apprehensive about starting a BLOG. I have a bad tendency to say more than I know I should about myself and this is a very public forum. I think I can avoid over exposure by trying to stick to my life as it involves tatting.

Of course everything else I do effects my tatting so at some point I will be bringing up other aspects of my life and other avocations.

I began tatting in November of 2005 and ended the majority of my experience in May of 2006. It is easy to see that I have a little over half a year of experience which ended over year and a quarter ago.

What is not apparent is that I have spent that year and quarter thinking about tatting and studying the craft. This in itself is both satisfying and highly frustrating. Though I have done a few small things every once in a while, they have all been in support of some theoretical or technical study I have been thinking about.

I do think after more than half a century of life that the practice of visualizing tatting and various techniques has improved both my ability to visualize and my memory.

I also enjoy chess and I am trying to learn Go (Wei-ch'i, Baduk), but with three kids and a two houses to care for I do not have time to engage an adults in games. We just moved from the home where our children were born into a house belonging to my brother-in-law. This should allow us to clean and fix up the other home so we can sell it. Unfortunately this does take a lot of time.

My two older kids will start school in a week so at that time I should be able to start in earnest cleaning the old house but as with everything else this leaves little time to tat.

I am hoping in this BLOG to be able to start passing on some of my ideas on tatting. I had a great mentor and have been lucky to study the books of several great teachers. The problem that will probably become apparent is that even though I think I have arrived at some good approaches to tatting I have lost the dexterity I developed in the first six months.

I have had some little success and I hope to pass on my thoughts in these entries. I have in particular spent a lot of time determining a path through a particular Mary Konior (one of my favorite designers) doily. With weeks of thought I have discovered a path that will allow me to go from start to finish with out having to cut and tie. This is particularly exciting since the main part of the doily consist of 16 motifs that are each tatted, with a cut and tie method.

The one thing that visualization finally made me realize is that certain approaches to split chains and split rings may not (actually probably will not) produce a smooth curve in which case using magic thread techniques with cut and tie tatting may actually produce a nicer looking doily than “uncut mobility.”

Well the first problem is finding time to actually tat the doilies. The second problem is that I have become obsessed with another aspect of tatting and in this case my lack of tatting practice has really limited my ability to tat properly. Plus there is another challenge with this obsession, but that will be the subject of a later entry.

Thank you for reading this, and just so you can have a little more enticement here is the motif from the Mary Konior doily.