A New Skill

Day 365: By the time I was 18, I had mastered enough of the most common fiber-arts that I was hired as the sole needlework consultant by a fabric-store chain on the east coast, but I was always looking to expand my knowledge base. Of course in those days, the internet was not a "thing," and books were the next best option to individual instruction. I did learn to tat from a co-worker, but two other potential skills intrigued me: bobbin lace and netting. I had no idea where to obtain the supplies for either. A few years later, I took a class in bobbin-lace making and found a supplier for bobbins and thread through the instructor. However, I was unable to find netting needles and gauges anywhere, and all thoughts of netting moved to the back shelf of my mind until recently when I stumbled across a video about it on YouTube, never mind that it covered fishing nets as opposed to lace. The principle is the same, but on a much different scale. I bought a cheap kit containing needles, shuttles and gauges and settled down to make my first swatch of net. I'm still quite clumsy at it and keep catching the thrown loop of the "Flying Dutchman" knot around my little finger more often than not, but the squares/diamonds of my net are uniform in size. For now, I'm working with #20 crochet cotton, but will move to finer threads once I'm entirely comfortable with the technique. Or maybe I'll go fishing.