On most occasions tatting when worked crisply and firmly will stand up beautifully on its own to handling and general use, but occasionally, for example with finished 3D items, you may want to use some kind of stiffening agent just to finish things off.

The traditional method of stiffening tatting is with sugar starch. You can find recipes in many books including The Complete Book of Tatting by Rebecca Jones; however, there are several reasons why this is not in general use now.

1. You have to prepare it in a pan on the stove and the sugar goes ABSOLUTELY EVERYWHERE - all over your hob - and you may never get it off your good pan.
   
2. Sugar starch can attract undesirable insects such as ants and once they get in your tatting has gone.
   
3. You may need to repeat the operation in the future as some starches can go limp in very hot weather and may get very sticky as well.
   
4. Finally, when you've made the starch you will be walking round the house for the rest of the night feeling strands of dried sugar everywhere!
   

I experienced a lot of this some years ago and it was such a disaster I would never try it again. I have read in one book that you could put your doily in the oven for a couple of hours until it had dried out but there are obvious dangers with that including the risk of burning your lace to a cinder, problems with kitchen foil sticking to the sugar starch and your lovely work being left with little silver bits all over it and the risk of burning your hands if you try to take the lace off while it is still hot. If you put it directly onto an oven tray you might find it's stuck firmly to the tray and you can never get it off.

The next idea is to dip the tatting in white PVA glue. First of all, it is NOT a good idea nowadays to use ANY kind of solvent to stiffen or attach your tatting - the glue can discolour or rot your lace, and some glues can cause unpleasant odours. There are also other risks related to the usage of illicit drugs and as a result many authorities forbid the use of glue to finish off lace entered for competitive or examination purposes.

I quite often use spray starch to stiffen doilies and flat items, blocking them out flat as described in my other article on this subject (check the archives for it). I will usually for a very crisp effect spray thoroughly, wait for a few minutes for the spray to soak in, then spray again, repeating several times through the evening every half hour to hour or so. This results in a piece of tatting that is as stiff as a board. However it does get quite wet and so not such a good option for a 3D item.

For lace that is to be finished to a 3 dimensional shape, your best option is to visit your local craft store and see if they have any specialist craft fabric stiffeners - Stiffy is a good one but I don't know if it's still available. Generally the directions are comprehensive and you can just dip your item in and then shape it and support it with shapers while it dries. For tubular items use a narrow plastic tube, and shape the tatting round greaseproof paper which will not stick to it whilst it dries.

Other options for stiffening lace include glitter nail polish, which produces a rather pretty and delicate sparkle on snowflakes, and people have also been known to use hairspray by mistake - it actually proved very successful fortunately.

For any method of stiffening involving the use of any liquid element, I would try a small sample first and see how you like it and how it works up in the finished item.

Next week I will discuss the use of solid items such as wire, bangles and shapes in your tatting.

Mounting Tatting is Gillian Buchanan's first tatting book, covering a wide range of skills and techniques for mounting tatted lace. Learn more about this title