Tatting.

I thought I should let you know how I'm going with learning to do tatting.  I'm not.  Tatting, that is.  Our tutor provided us with an instruction book containing a tutorial DVD.  It was a tutorial all right, but on painting, not tatting!  The publishers in England had put the wrong DVD in their book, and of course nobody realised until I (and probably anyone who got that book) put the DVD in their computer and tried to play it.  Our tutor had the original DVD and very quickly made copies of it and posted them to us.  But before mine arrived, I had an unfortunate accident.  We've been having our kitchen painted, and last Tuesday I came into the kitchen without looking at the floor, and tripped over a toolbox that the painter had his gear in.  The poor man nearly had a fit - he was from Iran and couldn't speak English very well, and he kept on saying Sorry!  so sorry!  I kept trying to tell him it was my own fault, but I think he had visions of being shipped back to Iran in the near future!

I went down like the proverbial ton of bricks, hitting cabinets and tables all the way, ending up with badly bruised shoulder, elbow and knee.  Lucky I didn't break any bones, but I've been very sore since then, and today I just didn't feel up to the long drive to the Guild and back for a two hour tatting torture session.
So I put the DVD on the t.v. instead and curled up on the couch with a cuppa to watch it.  Well, the more I watched, the more I realised that I will never be able to do tatting.  As I wrote earlier, I can't knit or crochet, as my fingers just seem to turn into thumbs, even before the arthritis set in, and that hasn't helped either, as your fingers get stiff after a while and refuse to co-operate with your brain.  So I rang our tutor, and explained, and she expressed sympathy for my injuries, but pleaded with me to come back for the last lesson next week. She said if she can at least get me doing the first stitches, I should be able to continue from there with practice.  Hmmmmm....