creative reflections

I read, I’m not dyslexic (although I’ve had moments), I’m not by nature averse to learning by reading, but my experience with written instructions has often been frustrating.   User manuals.   No.   Assembly instructions.   Nope.   Help text online.   Eyeroll.   So reading knitting patterns in knitting language?   Not my first choice for a fun activity.   BUT fiber mentor/enabler encouraged two of us students to take a class with her to make felted slippers.   Been wanting to try felting so took a step on faith, trusting my mentor, and took a deep breath.   Class came with a pre-homework assignment.   Get supplies, cast on, knit so far, etc.   Shopping-check.   Long tail cast on-ch…. er, need a longer tail.   2 nd try, nope, longer still.   OK, need to learn to better estimate long tail cast ons.   We used size 13 needles—big honking space needles!—odd after working on the small size 1s to make smal...

Ever since I first saw medieval reliquary bags from Sion, Switzerland I’ve been thinking about making one.   They boasts many different patterns, a rich variety of colors and the knitting was made with tiny needles, intimidatingly tiny.   Enter fiber mentor.   As it turns out good teachers pay attention and come up with clever projects to have students learn things that sometimes they’re not even aware they’re learning.   The process seems to go something like this:   Step 1-tease student with lots of great books with beautiful pictures of amazing fiber projects that they drool over, Step 2-identify an attainable project that really appeals, Step 3-enable the student to create a thing that won’t take too long or tax them too much.   Repeat.   All the while advancing the skills and confidence of the student. 2-color socks (a previous post) were a great start, working through some pattern reading, using 2 colors, trying different patterns, and elici...