It’s a busy (and rather long) week. I flew to the USA from the UK last weekend for a conference, and it was a long flight. Eight hours or so to Chicago, with no in-flight entertainment. Luckily, I’d already thought to take my own:

This is actually my second go at this pattern, by Mary Konior. It’s oddly hard to get into the rhythm of it, but it’s really pretty. I only made one visible mistake this time around, but I’m letting myself off the hook, as it’s not that noticeable, really – and the reason I made the mistake was because a very sweet lady started talking to me.

She spotted me tatting in the departure lounge as we were waiting for a connecting flight. I could see her looking out of the corner of my eye, and I knew she wanted to talk. Eventually she came over and said ‘Is that tatting?! My husband’s grandmother used to do it and I haven’t seen anyone do it since.’ She was so thrilled, it was really cute.

She also congratulated me for keeping a dying art alive. I pointed out that it was far from dying, she just needs to spend some time on google! As she was a knitter, I suggested tatting might be good to try for in-flight craft, as I know knitters are number 1 terrorists these days, with their oh-so-pointy, devilish needles. Tatting shuttles are less fiendish, at least according to airport security.

Poor little Ele, I’ve been using her to hang my smaller bits of tatting on. She had this on her nose for a while, but recently she’s been wearing three different coloured ones on her head. I’m trying not to lose them (my desk is a real mess). She’s doing a very good job of looking after everything.  These were also experiments in tatting with two colours – and joining the thread into a different coloured ring. I’ve kind of got it – it sort of depends on the day, how I’m feeling and whether or not the tatting gods are smiling on me 🙂

I’m back in the UK now, and jet-laggy. I’ve been thinking about tacking clunys since I spotted them again recently on Fox’s site. She’s been making a few different things with clunys and linked to a video by the Mistress of them all, Elisadusud. So last night, at around 12.45am I thought it might be a good time to start learning. Believe it or not, it wasn’t bad.

Tatting videos are so good, mainly because you can watch them frame… by…. frame… until…. you get what on earth is going on. I’ve got some size 20 Lizbeth thread, which is what I’m learning on – and at the moment, I cannot imagine how you’d do it on anything thinner – but I guess I’ll get there eventually? It’s the thread that makes the above photo look so nice – I can’t take credit for the colours. Also, it’s photographed surprisingly well – not sure it looks quite that good in real life!

So I’ll keep on practising for a bit, and if I ever manage to make a cluny in size 80 – which is my favourite thread – I’ll let you know!