Saying "Thank You" is Important

I read Marie Kondo's "The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up" at the bookstore in an hour (well, skimmed a bit, but read closely in many parts). I wasn't too impressed at the time (she spends a lot of time picking on how you fold your socks and shirts) but some things that sounded corny turn out to get to the heart of the problem. We form relationships, attachments to stuff, important and less important, and transfer some of our self image to those objects. So when she says that you should thank the object for serving you and then let it go, it's not about acting like the thing has ears and feelings, it's about acknowledging that you have feelings, memories, ideas, and expectations.

Borrow it or get the e-book version... you know why!

So when I presently come across my old tatting kit-- that I haven't used in 5 years and had put inside a basket of other things and stowed into a difficult to reach corner-- and when I take it out, I see the memory of looking very hard to even find those tiny tools, paying good money for them, spending a long time finding detailed how to tat instructions online and printing them, following them painstakingly close to learn the skill of making teeny tiny threaded knots. Honestly even though I did figure out how to wind and form the tiny picots, I grew exasperated of the slow progress. It would be an excellent hobby in that it is very tiny, easy to slip into a purse and do piecework on. And having tried it, I can all the more be awestruck by folks who make any elaborate lace work by hand from thread. But with babies and small children all over me, it was tedious and I never got anywhere serious with it.

Now I have other projects and skill sets I know I want to focus on. I want to think that I could tat anytime I like, but I know the reality is that I don't intend to, and that even if I suddenly changed my mind, I could probably hunt down those adorable little shuttle tools again, the information on how to is probably even more proliferate on-line than it was years ago when I found just one comprehensive tutorial (I'm sure there are dozens and lots of You Tube how-to's and some tatting guru on a forum and with a face book page for advice somewhere), In other words, even if I give up the Tatting kit, I still can tat any time I like, with fairly low amount of preparation.

Thank you, tatting tools, for giving me appreciation of the skill of others, for helping me improve myself, for being so adorably small. I'm happy to donate you so another can discover the things you shared with me.

What's so cheesy about that?

Next I'll let go of most of the bin of threads that I picked up second hand to tat with.... not quite so compact as the tools.