On the train to Manchester yesterday the lady in the adjoining seat told me about her four children, how they’d all become doctors. ‘Not enough time for meals’ was her comment on their cosmopolitan life styles. We shared her snack, made that morning ‘At five am’ she said ‘before I started out’. It was half term, she was having the day off. All the time we were talking she was weaving a delicate crocheted decoration ‘Not crochet, tatting.” It was almost finished, the edging to go around a collar on a dress. I couldn’t understand how you would start. Too complex, too intricate, how did it all hold together? She let me have a try with the tatting chatel. It looked like a small weaving shuttle. She may have said shuttle. Very thin yarn, cotton almost was wound round a wheel inside. There were no needles. You just followed a pattern of knots, back and forth with the chatel, ‘off the internet, couldn’t find the pattern anywhere else’. She was from Dehli, she thought that tatting originated in the US. She let me have a small sample. This took her less than ten minutes to make.
