For any who are interested....I use twice the amount of sugar to the amount of water. For the tiara and motifs (I have put in my album) I used half cup of sugar to quarter cup of water. Put into a saucepan, bring to the boil gently, stirring constantly until all the sugar is dissolved and then boil rapidly for approximately 2 minutes. You want a syrup that is thin enough to soak into the tatting but not too thin that it will not dry very hard. (Only experimentation will give you the right results.) Next, I dip the tatting in plain water first and blot up the excess. This allows the syrup to soak into the tatting much better. After allowing the syrup to cool slightly I then dip the tatting into the syrup, making sure that every bit of the tatting is completely covered by the syrup. Don't let the syrup cool too much otherwise it becomes too thick to handle. Take the tatting out of the syrup and blot away the excess with a damp cloth. Shape the tatting by pulling into position and then place onto a baking sheet covered in alluminium foil and put into a slightly warm oven. I set my fan oven at about 75 degrees C. It mustn't be any hotter otherwise the tatting will brown! Keep a watch on it! I take it out after 5 minutes and move the pieces about so that they don't stick and then put them back in for another 5 minutes, which will probably be enough. Try it and Happy Stiffening!