Spreading the Word

Now I know what you are thinking, she is talking about religion. Well I’m actually referring to spreading the word about tatting, although church has a prominent part to play in this for it is where I meet a lot of people. Yesterday was All Saints Day but in the evening we invited the bereaved to an All Souls service (which is really today) and the church was packed. At every opportunity I like to show people my work, and this is what I wear in church and at other services outside the confines of a church building, such as funerals which I conduct in a crematorium. I explained to our local funeral director what it was around my surplice, a couple of years later he informed me that he had solved a crossword clue because he knew the answer was “tatting”!

In one of our parishes we regularly attend a Wedding Fayre which is held in a hotel just down the road from the church. The hotel used to be an old manor house and it is surrounded by beautiful gardens. We are allocated a table and couples who visit the Fayre are invited to take some of our leaflets and ask about church weddings, we don’t book them at this stage. Anyway some have already booked their wedding either in another church or in a secular venue, but we still can give them help - perhaps in choosing music or readings. We used to be situated in a room in this hotel with a wedding photographer and a wedding car firm, which was fine but occasionally people would put their heads around the door and say “it’s the church” and make a very quick exit! This time our table was in a large room and beside us were two sisters who sing at wedding receptions, and so we were treated to their repertoire, they were very good, but it was a bit loud, especially when you were trying to hold conversations with people! The picture shows some of the items on the table including of course “tatting” there are entwined hearts and in the gold container are crosses and butterflies, Jane’s patterns. We invite people to take these tatted items away and invariably that means questions are asked about how they are made.

This necklace was made for a girl of about 12 yrs old who saw some of my tatting and has expressed a wish to learn how to tat, along with her mother, they are in the congregation of one of the churches I minister in – so that’s what I mean about spreading the word!