Isn't it strange, that when I began this crazy obsessive activity of tatting almost three years ago, I had the notion that anyone who used beads on tatting was not tatting properly - as in the way tatting is 'supposed' to be. What an outrageous opinion. I felt very righteous as well!
If I could not laugh at myself, honestly I would be in danger of weeping! That is not even my own thought, as someone else said that (Baudelaire?) and much more adroitly.
At any rate, the other idiotic notion I had was that I felt that people who spent so much time blogging and commenting to complete strangers online were pathetic and kind of creepy! Exchanges were dumb, and why were so many of those tatting folks doing that anyway? WOW - witness the narrowness of the judgemental. End of confession!
❀ Where would I be without my wonderful blogging/tatting buddies? ❀
NOW
On The Fandango Front...
So much trouble for a mere square inch!
I must have tatted this pattern by Jane here, more than five times before I got it sort of correct! I cannot follow instructions.
Very frustrating - I will do it again, and I would like to tat it with beads. Interesting to me is the fact that I was not stymied as usual by directional changes, as there are not many, but because I kept joining to the wrong picot and discovering that way too late to carry on.
The two patterns - this one and the Small Motif, also by Jane, will keep me too busy for a bit to tackle the lovely ones in my new book - thank you Wendy! It was held up in the strike and was just delivered. Can't wait!
I often wonder the same thing... where would I be without my tatting buddies. I know that I would not have been inspired to keep trying, and I'm pretty sure I never would have completed so many pieces! Remember all those warnings about not meeting people in person who you've met online? I would still be cautious, but I've met so many wonderful tatters online, that I feel like I already know them by the time we meet in person!
ReplyDeleteI have a book by a North Carolina tatter named Witt Wittmann whom I met many years ago, which is titled Tat Witt, What I Learned When I Learned to Tat. I just realized all the chapters begin with a "P" word - Patience, Practice, Piggish, Perserverance, Paradox, Passion, Pace, Paraphrase, Patterns, Progress, Puns....she likes to use words in the way you do. She also writes beautiful poetry and used to have a website which highlighted her tatting and her poetry or links to it. I'm not sure they are still around. We do learn so much by sharing.
ReplyDeleteHave you been tatting only 3 years?
ReplyDeleteI for one like when you "have been thinking".
I agree with you ... where would I be without our online tatting community? I can definately tell you that without them my tatting wouldn't be what it is now and I doubt I'd be teaching someone else to tat. (and I sure wouldn't be spending so much time on the computer reading more than 100 different blogs LOL)
Please continue to share what you "have been thinking". I love it.
Thanks for being my tatting friend.
Tat On, Girlfriend, Tat On!
Perhaps, as a group on line, we tatters are pretty benign. Cursed with the general foibles of being human and some with very real challenges of different sorts. Tatting, for one like me is truly a window to the world and many of you are the only ‘people’ I talk to for months! A scant few are stuck with up close and personal sharing ~ mutual of course. As you are there for me, I am there for you (and you know who you are). Imagine my surprise when an on line friend from FB actually turned up on my door step! Fortunately, she is a delightful full-of-life person who brought real joy into my life for a few hours. Her son, it turns out, lives in our community and they were ‘surprise’ visiting for his birthday.
ReplyDeleteI have a thank you box that I keep ‘thank you’ notes within. It is for those days when I feel I haven’t contributed much to anyone. Then I pull out the box and remind myself that I have tried to be gracious in my life. I look at the shuttles that have been given to me, and those made special by friends like you. Decorated with lady bugs, paisley, bejeweled useful objects of art.
I need my tatting buddies...yes, independent, opinionated me...I do need you all in my life; because you keep me civil and going forward....xxx bj
Oh, Fox, we need each other, tatters or not. I love your "thinking time" you come up with the neatest things. and yes, we all start with preconceived notions, and nearly always have to change them. but isn't the process fun. I would miss all of you dearly if you weren't there. I know that my tatting would not be where it is without the online community that I found back in the late 1990's. It was an immense step forward finding other tatters. I had thought I was the only one for so long. I have learned so much from all my online tatting buddies. and writing a blog, my goodness, except for wanting to show my tatting friends what I have done, well, I used to never think that anyone would want to read what I have written, and I get the nicest comments for such a variety of online friends. Yeah for all of us.
ReplyDelete...without the internet and blogs and tatting buddies, we would think that no one really tat much anymore. Then Lo behold... look at us all!
ReplyDeleteOh my! Your wonderful comments have actually made me cry! No fooling!
ReplyDeleteI was not expecting such a heartfelt response to this post - See! Just goes to show once again how very wrong-headed I used to be!
Thanks so much for taking the time to write down your thoughts.
Fox : * ))
Looking forward to SEEING you again! Suneeti
ReplyDeleteI am thinking how I missed seeing this post until now. I hope you enjoy the book. We all have preconceived ideas about blogging and bloggers. It was tatting with beads that made me want to learn tatting properly.
ReplyDeleteWithout tatting friends online, I would still be stuck at plain chains and rings and would have missed out on 'meeting' the most wonderful people! Thanks for being one, Fox! Oh, yeah, and keep thinking, okay? Thanks
ReplyDelete