When I was a kid, my mom made all of our clothes. I remember one dress in particular, it had a sort of gray/brown linen fabric with blue flowers. Mom added a variegated blue and white strip of tatting to the collar. She had a boxful of tatted lengths that her mother had made, and sometimes she'd add it to her sewing. That dress is the only one I remember; there may or may not have been more. I just know that I have very few pieces of Grandma's tatting left. I always thought it was neat stuff, and whenever I came across miniature tatted pieces I tried to buy a piece or two. A few years ago I decided that I wanted to learn to tat, too. Mom never learned because her mother couldn't teach her. I'm guessing that Grandma had done it by rote for so long that she couldn't do it and think about it at the same time. Anyway, I decided I needed to learn it for myself. Anyone who's ever done any tatting has struggled with "the flip", that crucial step that transfers the knot from one thread to another. Once I had that down, I was on the way. From reading other tatters' blogs and comments, I've found a common thread in our experiences. Our grandmothers tatted. Tat in public, and if someone recognizes what you're doing, they'll invariably say "my grandmother tatted." One tatter has gone so far as to describe us as the "secret knot society". Just for fun, I used Morse code to design a little motif for our secret society. SKS translates as ... -.- ... This is the result: