Hello, Lovely Tatters! What a time I'm having in my garden! I have tomatoes going gangbusters, a strawberry "patch" that just keeps on giving, raspberries of my own for the first time in my life, and a potato condo that looks like it's going to be a really wonderful idea! My one lonely corn stalk, however, may cause me and Beloved to draw pistols over the one ear of corn it is producing. My philosophy is that this is a "learning garden" and learning I am! My broccoli and cauliflower are not usable at all, and my carrots are so small we will likely just make a meal out of the whole crop. I have learned a great deal, though. Container gardening gives me far fewer problems than gardening in the ground directly, that's for sure!
I wonder if any of you have ever heard of a magazine called "Our Canada"? It's published about 6 times a year, and once in a while they publish stories that catch my eye.
In the October/November 2017, there was an article printed in their "Crafty Canadians" column that was titled "And Sew On".
Now, ordinarily I wouldn't give it another look, but there was a word that caught my eye just under the title:
...tatting...
I used to live in Nova Scotia, where this article is penned. I didn't think there were other tatters there, although I have learned that Karen Negus (with whom I have done an interview) lives not too far from where I was, and now I find the author of this article lives not too far from there, too.
Here is the article:
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This article is written by Barbara Watson and outlines how very special a bond can develop over a craft of any kind. I have to admit to thinking "why didn't I know about any of these talented Bluenosers (that's what folks from Nova Scotia call themselves) when I was living down there 20 years ago and feeling like I was the only one that tatted?
Well, it only goes to show that talented people don't like to blow their own horns. At least, not tatters. I have never met a more humble group of people than tatters, and more-so among Canadian tatters. We love our chosen art, we love talking about it, we will help you until the cows come home, but as for bragging about our own skills? Ah, no, we just don't do that. Most Canadian tatters I know prefer to work in the shadows and quietly help those that find us with questions.
This is why I'm doing interviews with Canadian tatters, and snooping out articles and Canadian entries into the blogosphere. I look for Canadian tatters online, something I couldn't do when I started because going "online" when I was learning just wasn't possible. The internet didn't exist! We muddled along in silence, not knowing where to look for information but overjoyed when we found a book in a library or found someone that knew what we were doing!
Canadians, as a whole, are exceptional craftspeople, and the world needs to know we're here and we're not going anywhere!
Happy tatting!
