By Dee Dwyer
“My grandmother used to do that !” or “that’s a lost art”--these are two comments that Karen Negus of Tatting for Spirit often hears when customer browse her unique and intricate tatting work. It is time-consuming--“It takes 25 minutes to make something the size of a quarter,” says Karen--but entirely appreciated by those who love her work. Imagine her tatting in a tranquil moment with her 18-year old African gray parrot, Ruby, perched on her knee.
Karen Negus was born in southern England in the town of Bedford, and came to Canada with her parents in 1976. Her father, a civil engineer, worked in the oil industry in Alberta and Saskatchewan. In 1992 Karen came to Nova Scotia to attend the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, graduating with a degree in design and environmental planning in 1996.
Karen’s mother has a great passion for knitting, does tole work too, and her father made model boats as a hobby. “I’m a chip off the block,” says Karen referring to her mother’s love of natural fibres and her father’s expertise and precision work. “He would fix the design in the kits and send the company revised versions.”
Decidedly self-taught, Karen started tatting in 1998 when she watched a television show where it was demonstrated, even with left-handed instructions. She found needles and yarn at local craft shops. "I am not a lacy person,” Karen says. “But I like its geometrical quality. It’s a mathematical equation, a precise art. If the chains and stitches are not made correctly, it won’t hold its shape and will warp.” She initially focused on making crystal therapy pieces, making tatted medallions to be placed on one’s chakras, and colourful custom orders.
She started selling her tatting online on Etsy, in 2011, and later at local markets on the Eastern Shore, and at craft markets at the Old School in Musquodoboit Harbour. She did workshops with Jo-Ann Shaw, impressing her tatting in clay with great success. She makes snowflakes, which are popular, and other ornaments, and bells and flowers, to be attached to fairy lights. She also does crocheting, making touques, hats, cowls, and baby outfits. She prefers natural hand-spun fibres, and loves colour. She even talks of the medicinal quality of natural fibres like linen and wool. “They take moisture out of the joints, good for those with arthritis.”
One of Karen’s greatest accomplishments is her making her own tatting needles. A wooden dowel of uniform thickness has to be tapered and then a hole has to be carefully drilled in one end. Here again precision is required.
Karen has received a number of honours for her work. A women’s group in Amherst called Zonta showcased her work at a Fibre Festival in 2013. A fashion magazine also selected her work from online --a handmade pair of tatted white earrings with chakra beads. Her work has also received first place ribbons in two categories at the Halifax County Exhibition.
More recently Karen has gotten into needle felting, embellishing purses with abstracts and blasts of colour. She mentions red and pink tatting on one purse, and mustard colours and bees and honeycombs on another. She talks of adding beads and charms to her purse designs.
With a recent move and all her craft products in storage, Karen is not taking orders now, but looks forward to the fall when she can get back to making her original and colourful fibre art for those wanting custom orders and unique craft items at this season’s craft markets. You can contact her then at [email protected].