teaching

When I was lead artist of the Manitoulin circle Project, I worked alongside a group of women who had a wide variety of sewing skills.  We made four large panels together with hand stitch.

There were enough techniques that people could find out which ones they enjoyed the most.  Several of the women just did hand quilting in the frame and that's all.  Others never went near  the quilt frame and preferred to work on small hand held pieces to make the quilt tops.

It all worked out and although I was continually creating (figuring things out), and continually teaching, the panels were the big reward and definite goal.  All of us worked towards an end product to the best of our abilities.

We enjoyed the process of learning and making.  If that was teaching, then the manitoulin circle 'class' went on for four years.

Translating that lengthy and relaxed experience into a three to five day workshop is not as straightforward as I thought it would be.  To work the bugs out I've been practicing in my local community.  Last fall, three artistic volunteers came to my home studio and we went through the workshop I'm presenting this fall in Newfoundland.

From these young women,  I learned that they wanted to learn and practice the embroidery stitches and construction methods in the meditation panels, and that takes time.

From my sweet guinea pigs I learned that the design process is so thrilling, it can very easily take all the time.

Time is the biggest challenge for me in presenting a workshop.

I keep forgetting that time is limited, because I approach my own work as if I have all the time in the world.

I tell my students to do the same.

All images in this post are from the fall trial workshop.