The day I made Mary Ito cry

The day came for the CBC TV crew to come and do a spot on tatting. Some unfortunate circumstances meant an unavoidable delay but Mary Ito the host of Living in Toronto, April Stevens, the producer. and the ca merman Richard arrived and got set up.

Mary is even sweeter and more charming in person that she appears on TV. She was a delight to talk to and made me feel perfectly calm and at ease.

Mary want me to show her how to tat and as we all know, co-ordinating both hands in unfamiliar positions is challenging at first. In between the changing positions for that camera and pausing while Dusty, the macaw voiced her opinion, I botched up the explanation of how to tat. So instead of things being concise and coherent, it was more of "put this thingamajig through that spot there and pull that thread over here".

I decided that if a novice tatter was going to be filmed doing their first bit of tatting it had better be something quick. So I decided on a one ring butterfly. Just 5 stitches. The first 3 were relatively painless, then the pressure of keeping a schedule added to the frustration and the stitches just wouldn't co-operate. Down to the last half stitch and the tension mounted. the first half stitch un-flipped, the thread wouldn't slide, it seemed hopeless and Mary started laughing.

The laughter took on a slightly hysterical note and the cameraman stopped filming for a moment. The Mary wiped away the tears and surmounted that last obstacle, that one last half stitch......and closed the ring.

Congratulations Mary, you did it! I'm so sorry I made you cry.