Five Tatted Bookmarks

Today I blocked 5 tatted bookmarks for Lisa. It has taken longer than I expected, but I never counted on being sick for a month.
Each tatter develops an individual method of blocking. Here’s what I do. I soak my bookmarks in hot water spiked with a touch of liquid dishwashing soap. (Make sure your soap is not ‘enhanced’ with lemon or citrus. This will add color to your white tatting. I learned the hard way.)
Rinse well in cool water, blot dry on a clean towel. Mix a stiffener with cool water in the same shallow bowl. I prefer Elmer’s School Glue, it can be washed out if the tatting gets dirty or dusty and the item re-starched. For snowflakes, I want them very firm, and I use about 50/50 mix of water to glue. I like a bookmark to hold its shape, and still have a bit of flex, so my glue/water mix is lighter on the glue. It also depends on the size of your thread. Size 20 is fairly heavy for tatting, and the bookmarks will hold their shape without a lot of stiffening.
I soak each bookmark individually in the glue/water mix, then blot out the excess on paper towels and pin out on my piece of Styrofoam. I have the board covered with a piece of waxed paper, and re-use the same pins every time. When I pin out my tatting, I check picots for size, and make sure the rings are all laying flat. I also check the chains for shape and symmetry. When you block tatting, you can accent or modify some of the elements, but tatting will not stretch the way knitted lace will.
The bookmarks will be dry tomorrow and I’ll put them in the mail. Look out, Lisa, here they come!