Meeting a Tatter

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I love Tatting. I love love Tatting and eversince I started, sometimes in April 2008, my only wish has been to meet a Tatter. Someone who tats and who loves to talk about shuttles and threads and picot sizes and anything and everything related to it. The day before… I got my chance!

My husband’s great aunt was visiting us. I don’t have a MIL, she died before we married (May the Almighty forgive her and grant her a place in Jannatal Firdaus). Hubby’s great aunt is the closest that comes to being something of MIL to me and she is amazing. Incidently, she happens to be my mum’s childhood friend too and my mum knew that she tatted. My mother doesn’t know tatting but allt hat she knows about it is because of this aunt. She always told me of her everytime she saw me tat.

Anyway, she was over for dinner and after dinner we sat down talking and one thing led to another and she asked me about a frame on a shelf, if it was tatting. That sparked and I ended up showing her everything I ever did. My excitement here is not mentionable compared to hers. It was like she came alive and lost years off her age. Like little girls, giggling and sharing a new experience, we talked and laughed all about our adventures in tatting. She told me how she didnt like crochet because there were some poor people when she was growing up and they didnt send their girls to school but taught them to crochet instead and she grew up thinking that was cruel. She told me of the time she was in Libya and got thread and tatted small medalions that she joined later. About all her projects and how she loved to join pieces of cloth and work around that. She loved the smaller thread sizes, she said and she hadn’t worked with others because she never knew she could. It never crossed her mind, she said. She was fascinated by the silk threads that I had worked with and she took down its name and where I bought it from. All the while remarking that her daughters never took interest in learning to tat and now even her daughter in law doesn’t like it. It was like saying ‘I am so glad I found you and that you do this.’ She felt like it was a dying art. I agree with her. It is a dying art. Not many people do it these days… but it such a stress reliever, we both agreed on that.

From her, I found that my OBG, who happens to be her elder sister, is a tatter too! Now that, is one amazing thing. I always thought that she was a tatter (I know this may sound very funny but) because of the way she holds her pen. My doctor is very old. She must be in her 70s but she is one very remarkable lady. I love her judgement and poise and calmness, in times of extreme distress, especially. She helped me through both my pregnancies and through my depression after I lost my daughter. The way she holds the pen is like a tatter holds a shuttle or a thread. At every visit when she is writing out the prescription, I keep my eyes on her fingers… she has beautiful hands too, MashaAllah. Now I hear she is a tatter too. Aunt said that her sister was a better a tatter too, that she had tatted really huge pieces- table cloths and curtains and borders. I can’t imagine a doctor doing that but since I have seen her hands, I believe it, even without seeing the pieces!

Aunt taught me to hide the ends too. I am so bad at sealing in the ends that I entirely gave up doing that. I have so many incomplete projects because I couldn’t get them in neat and I didnt want to do it because of that. Usually what I do is tie a knot and cut it closest to the base with a nail clipper and apply a drop of instant-dry glue to it. Yes,I know I am a cheater and that it is the silliest way you know anybody doing it. She laughed at me too. I’ll try to practice her way and post when I am done.

She was with us for only four hours but it was a really amazing four hours. I asked her again and again to come and stay with us and not go… not caring if I sounded silly and like a little girl, but she had to go back. I hope I see her again soon.

I wish I meet some more tatters… or crocheters… or someone who can teach me something new. Someone, here… in Jeddah.

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