Curiouser and Curiouser

Gratuitous photo, unrelated (somewhat) to the following:


Most of the time, when one is a teacher of anything, one is well versed in the subject one is teaching. This makes perfect sense right?

There are different learning and teaching styles, as a given, and some teachers reach some learning styles better than others. The kinetic learners (aren't we, fiber people, all?) the aural learners and the visual learners pose different challenges in a classroom situation, and the dance is to find out how to teach them all.

I like being a part of a classroom full of fiber people, the excitement, energy, general goodwill and fun of being with people who like what we all do. I so look forward to classes I'm taking, and teaching.

But what if the learning is not face-to-face, but just words and pictures online? or by DVD? or You Tube? How do you vet a teacher? How do you know someone is not wasting your time? By their reputation?

What about all the learning that goes on between students, not just direct information presented to the class, but the sidelines, the digressions and the personalities in class? I would miss that. Some online classes have the benefit of sharing among the students, but that can be burdensome, chatty, off-topic overkill too.

Knitting is often taught pattern by pattern (take this sock class, or this class on making gloves, this class on this sweater using this yarn, etc.). Does this lead to teachers who have never done original work? I'm guessing so, since I have known some teachers who follow patterns (and do it well), know how to modify patterns to fit different bodies, yarns, whatever, but have not designed anything from the yarn (or fiber) up.

Many people (myself included) learn lots of techniques from following a pattern. Good patterns do just that: the designer has tricks worked right in, shaping, cast ons, hems, tricks, decreases expertly placed, all to help the knitting be more than a cut and sew garment. So is the designer the teacher, then, and the teacher presenting the ideas of the designers?

I've always aimed for teaching the technique, not following a pattern necessarily. I teach spinning, dyeing and weaving, and there are very few patterns, per se. One of the skills we try to teach is the critical thinking needed to achieve a goal (how do I get sock yarn? How do I get that color? How do I make determine how to weave fabric like that?). There are just too many variables to have everyone trying to achieve the same exact outcome.

I have had to create patterns that will teach the skills I want to pass on, so indeed, we are learning from a pattern. My hope is that people still leave the class with enough skills to create original work. That's my goal.

It may not be the goal of the person taking the class though: they might just want to try out a technique and see if they want to continue with it. I get people in classes who never do the technique again. I try not to blame myself for this: I do tend to teach esoteric weaving skills. Not much call for your esoteric weaving skills in this modern world, unless for some reason they happen to resonate, in which case they are then fun, as they are for me, and I'm all about sharing the fun.

As a student though, how do we know how the teacher will be? How do you decide, when choosing a teacher, on whom to trust with your hard-earned dollars (or Euros or Yen)? Do you follow the crowd? Do you take other people's recommendations? Do you decide based on work or articles by the teacher that you've seen or read?

I puzzle through this often. I rarely take a class from someone I have never heard of, but with the internet(s) we *hear* of just about everyone, and mostly in glowing terms. Lately there have been a few snafus where the internet(s) have ferreted out some poseurs (thank you Ravelry), but for the most part, everyone is happy-happy-no-critiques online. So how do you gauge (hah!) the truth through all the fawning?

I've taken far more weaving and spinning classes than knitting classes, and the weaving world is a little smaller. There are fewer new entries in the teaching-about-weaving world than there are in knitting, where everyone can teach someone as soon as they know two things. In fact, I'm signing up for a weaving class next January, at GGFI, just because I want to learn from someone I've never met, never heard of anyone who has taken the class, but whose work online looks fabulous.

It is hard to be a trailblazer, and try out new teachers. We recently had a conference where the organizers wanted to have all new teachers, people who may not have taught here before. Sign ups for the seminars were great (comes with conference registration) but the workshops were under-subscribed (costs extra). By all accounts, they were fabulous teachers, their work was good, their lectures and seminars were well received. But people did not know who the teachers were, what there work was like, how they managed their classes etc, before the conference. If those same teachers came back, I'm sure there would be far more interest and sign ups because now we know, now we have heard, now we have word-of-mouth, now we have testimony.

Some conferences try to balance the old and new teachers and class offerings, and I think that is the key: SOAR usually has someone entirely new along with some tested veterans teaching. GGFI has done this too, even though it is a brand new conference: several road-tested teachers and some that are new on the scene. This gives attendees the confidence to sign up for someone new, knowing that there is also the opportunity to balance that with a known entity.

Spinning is starting to burgeon, and with this comes the You Tube videos, DVDs, classes at local knit shops, a whole new crop of Spinning Teachers. How do we decide who has something to say? Does it matter? I learn something from every teacher I've been privileged to sit with, perhaps off the syllabus, but still...

We need new teachers. We need new viewpoints, new perspectives, new twists on old techniques. Someone has to vet them, and I guess there is a winnowing process of sorts by word of mouth or by work done and seen. There is certainly very little winnowing online. Everyone can be an expert. Until they are not. Then they are the latest cautionary tale.

Interesting. I am working long hours in the studio, and ruminating. Can you tell? Thoughts?

Busy Weekend

This past weekend was the Conference of Northern California Handweavers (CNCH) held close by in Sacramento. I attended on Saturday, shopped the vendors and wandered through the various galleries of work on display. I was stopped in my tracks by a beautiful woven shawl by Tien Chiu called Liquid Fire. It is just that, in silk, an amazing combination of color and weave structure.

Tien dyed the silk for this shawl in several batches, grading the colors so that the color changes are very subtle. It is woven in a multi-harness pattern weave, and the color and weave structure are complementary. The shawl is a tour de force: often a colorful piece will have a simple weave structure, and a structurally interesting piece will have simple colors. This shawl combines both color and weave structure in an exceptional way, and is truly stunning :).

I wrote to Tien and asked her permission to quote her dyeing information:

It's actually interesting from a dyer's perspective - the color
transition looks continuous but is actually forty stripes of color in
the warp, and another forty stripes of color in the weft. I mixed up
eighteen combinations of red to gold, and another two combinations of
gold and lemon yellow, to give a total of twenty different colors of
yarn. I then ran it gradually from red to yellow (twenty stripes) and
back to red again (another 20 stripes).

The weft is also 40 stripes, from red to yellow and back again - which
is why it has so much "color motion" in it.

Tien says she tried several combinations and colors until she came up with this seamless blend for the warp and weft. The idea is wonderful and Tien's execution is flawless!

It is also inspiring: what would happen if you tried to knit this? I can imagine a knitted blank painted in grades of colors, to be re-knit into a shawl (or scarf, let's start small). But I don't think I am a good enough knitter to re-knit and have everything come out where it is supposed to be. Weaving (in that sense) is easier, you put the threads where you want them and they stay there :)

Spinning the color into yarns would also be possible, especially if you dye a set of colors and then blend the gradients. Even with that, my mind sets up the finished project as weaving not knitting: I think my weaving skills are just more honed than my knitting skills, and certainly my weaving mind jumps to the forefront ahead of my knitting mind.

Dyers certainly seem to have the leg up on color ideas like this, and spinners maybe even more so. How do people function when they can't make colors?? I know you can strand colors to blend them, and some lines of yarn are particularly good for this: I'm thinking Paternayan tapestry yarns, with three components of two plies each, plenty of room to grade colors. There are some yarn lines, like Tahki Classic Cotton, which have several tints tones and shade of every hue, but not the 20 Tien produced. There are probably lines of dyed silk, but with 20 colors from red to gold? Not commercially.

Thanks Tien, for displaying your shawl and being so generous with the information on how you made it! It is lovely.

I also went to the Maker Faire this weekend, and it was inspiring and exciting on a very different level than CNCH. There were lots of crafts vendors and displays, lots of activity and experimentation, and tons of potential. It reminded me of the 60's, clothing-wise, population-wise and excitement-wise. There were arts and crafts, but also electronics, music, outdoor art, sculptures, demonstrations, classes and food :). Lots of silly things and un-polished ideas: just the type of inspiration which can help develop the new ideas we will need in this world. People came in droves (65,000!)and the level of excitement was palpable. It was crazy like Burning Man, without the heat and dust.

There were knitting and crochet classes, vendors of finished crafts and craft supplies, recycled clothing make-it/take-it with lots of sewing machines set up to help people right there.

I saw Kristine whose business partner Brooke was at CNCH the day before. I wondered at the different venues: CNCH focuses on weavers, the Maker Faire is focused on DIY of every stripe, woodworkers, engine mechanics, computer geeks, electronics nerds, and artists of all kinds. The Maker Faire was definitely more exciting for the whole family, but CNCH and other fiber festivals reach a small self-selected audience of fiber aficionados.

Which did I like? Well, both. The Maker Faire has such potential for changing more than just the fiber world, with interaction between various fields of thought. But fiber fairs of every kind are my focus and my orientation. Even at the Maker Faire, what I liked was the fiber.

I can ramble on, but you get the picture. Spring has sprung and fairs are here, with all of the excitement and inspiration they bring. A busy weekend indeed.

Time

I think about writing a post. Does that count?

First, the business: Marie, Patricia will trade her hair for better hips. Deal?

Next up, aptly named deadlines. Ahem.

They seem so far away when I make them. There will be lots of time. Plans are made, yarns are spun or procured, tools assembled.

If all goes well (famous last words) things will get done in a timely manner.

Then a few things pop up. A few things get added to the list. An event comes around that takes me away from the studio. You know, life.

It's a gamble, setting those deadlines. If I miss one, that sets the whole time schedule off, which is not a good thing for a Virgo. We have our rules. We wish that we could abide by them.



I'm spinning away on these two projects, the deadline for which is next May. Yes, a year from now. Maybe by then I'll be caught up!

Waiting

Patricia has been one of those people who harass me about eagerly await new blog posts. Since she just had a birthday (65! Right here on the Internets!), we'll oblige.

There has been lots of waiting lately, as things I normally do have been put aside. I'm anxiously waiting to get these on the loom:



Cotton warps, dyed last year, for a new jacket for me. Jacket season is almost over, but the current one (pictures to follow, someday, that waiting thing again) has been worn and worn for 14 years. Cold weather will come again, and when it does, I will have a new jacket in bright fall colors.

In the next few days (weeks, months) I plan to catch up on blog posts that have been waiting: things like cute doggies, squirrels in trees, spinning, dyeing and maybe even a little weaving.

I know I have been remiss. Things should get better, since yesterday I boxed up four months of my life and put it in the mail:



Book.

Clockwork

We had another guild dye day Saturday, 20 people came, dyed, ate a fabulous pot luck lunch, and worked hard. This is the fourth or fifth guild dye day we have had, and we are getting the procedure down pat.

I try to have the inexperienced or first-timers at one table, so I can answer questions more easily, and some people might hear an answer to a question they did not know they had. This means I am somewhat distracted, at times, and miss a few things going on around me.

Like watching the pots. There have been, um, unfortunate occurrences in the past (like things did not get steamed. Or the pot got turned down for lunch, and never turned back up. Or things did not have enough time in the pot before someone thought they needed to be removed and new stuff put in. Ahem).

This time we had a pot monitor.

Dee came, and did not dye. She kept track of what went in when and what comes out next, who is steamed and who (or what) is not. Or something like that, it was all very complicated. Dee handled it with aplomb and grace. No one fussed or argued. Things got steamed the right amount of time, at the right temperature (big yay and a sigh of relief). It worked like clockwork.



We had the usual fun, we dyed fiber yarn and fabrics, we painted steamed and immersed. Color samples were everywhere and towards the end of the day, as things came out of wrappings, there were oooooohs, and aaaaaahs.



Lots of work got done (I know, work is a term used loosely here). Lots of play happened, plans were made, plots were hatched and many future projects were discussed. It was a swirl of ideas and opinions, some of which devolve in to the silly. Which is a good thing in these times, we need more silly.



We had several brand new dyers, and I hope they will be recidivates. Yes, I am aware that term usually refers to criminal behavior. We have so much fun it should be a crime. Sometimes we need a keeper (thanks Dee!).

Towards the end of the day a few of us were still working out in the dye area (AKA garage) and I heard uproarious laughter coming from in the house, from the peanut gallery. There were new members and old hands in there, all watching Eileen spin on Sue's Lendrum Saxony (enabling, er, helping, once again!).

It is a magical sound, people laughing, friends gathered. Fun to hear, even when you don't know what the joke is. It happens a lot when we get together.

That is really what this is all about.

I'm Getting Phone Calls

I'm fine, in case you were worried.

The phone calls are more of a harassing nature, from employees of a local public entity, who apparently read their blogs online at work, and who are tired of having no updates in this venue. Nothing more will be said regarding the perhaps less-than-wise expenditure of time paid for by public funds. Perhaps, in days past, this blog might have been considered *research* or some such. Surely there were moments when it was educational.

Now I have lied. I said nothing more would be said, and then I said more.

Things still move apace here, nothing to show (yet) for many hours of grueling weaving.

Soon. In the meantime, a photo of something old:



Handspun silk yarns, circa, 2005.

Or this:



I always liked this photo: the bag is handspun silk, cardwoven, with smashed pennies, I think 2004.

And I'll take a moment to wish my daughter-in-law a Happy Birthday (Happy Birthday Shannon!).

Will this do Lindsey?

Little Things

Small pleasures:





Colors I thought were *Fall* turn out to be *Spring*. Who knew?

Sand Hill Cranes have been flying North. The Canada Geese passed over about a month ago, amidst snowstorms (perhaps snow still says *Spring* to Canadians?).

The sun is now a more regular visitor. I have no illusions that the rains, and perhaps more snows, are behind us, but I am enjoying this respite. There is much budding and blossoming at lower elevations, but we are just beginning to see green here.

For you color police: see? There is green in my knitting. And Canadians? I'm sorry, you are just such an easy target (being so polite, and all).