I am a VERY beginning knitter. as of last week I only knew how to knit, but then over the weekend my lis' sis' was home from Asheville and she taught me how to purl. So yesterday, I printed out a couple knitting patterns from the internet including, some baby afghans, a baby poncho and two different patterns for baby booties. No, I'm not pregnant, but Ryan's sister is. Since Ryan's mom is a quilter extraordinaire, I am not going to quilt a baby blanket for her. I decided I either have to weave or knit a baby blanket, but now I'm thinking cute little pink booties will be even cuter. and maybe a blanket too... we'll see. So last night I pulled out a skein of pink yarn and cast on the number of stitches one of the bootie patterns called for, then started to figure out on my own the K1, P1, K1, P1. I did two rows like that, but it didn't look like any baby bootie ribbing I'd ever seen, so I called Shannon, turns out she was doing homework at the bar with a friend, haha. Shannon explained to me how to knit and purl within the same row. I was using circular needles and when switching between K and P, I was pulling the yarn through the middle of the needles (reaching thru the circle) which apparently, is WRONG. so she told me how to do it and I did about 3 or 4 rows and lost track of my K's and P's. I frogged it a couple times and started over. it's ok though. Baby isn't due till February, I have plenty of time to either 1. learn to knit baby booties or 2. scrap the freakin' booties and make a baby blanket. But I have every intention of going toward #1.
As for the moonflowers and the finished critique... it went well. Teacher was pleased except kept saying that she didn't like the quilting I did in the moon. I quilted off-center concentric circles. which... in my defense, were much less visible under the lighting of my sewing room. But a lot of the students in the class weren't bothered by them. I think they are a tad too geometric for the rest of the piece, but it's kinda too late to do anything about it. if I rip out those stitches, the needle holes will still be there because I used Heat'n'Bond instead of wonder under. I suppose I could add more stitching on top of what is already there in a more flowing, stippleing stitch. we'll see. maybe I'll hang it up in my apt. so I have to look at it every day, then maybe I'll come up with a good way to fix it.
I got into a really loud heated conversation about class with my mom on the phone last night. We weren't fighting, it was mostly me being annoyed/pissed at my teacher. I just can't handle people that interrupt. So far, my teacher seems to be the Queen of interrupting. Not only does she cut the speaker off, but she doesn't even stick with the subject. It's liek thoughts are coming into her brain so fast that she has to spit them out before they are gone forever. But it jsut shows me that she is not even listening to what the other person is saying, since she is changing the subject when she interrupts and that she has absolutely no respect for anyone.
Want some examples? ok, I have examples. (oh man, I can feel it, I'm getting all worked up about it again)
1. at the critique Tuesday night, I was explaining my piece. One of the students had a question about the process of free-motion quilting, she had never done it and wanted to try. While I was listening to her question, the teacher says in a louder voice, "What are you going to do with the flowers?". I just looked at her, probably gave her the evil eye, and went back to listening to my classmate.
2. After the crit last night, I asked teacher if she wanted us to turn our pieces in to her, or if we could take them with us. Her reply, "Oh, I was going to bring my camera, I forgot." and then she kept rambling on about that w/o answering my question. I waited until she was done and asked again, "so are we leaving these with you?". Her reply, "Oh, Ann got us the display cases in the hallway so we can hang our work in there." Ok, that's not really an answer either. So I took my piece home with me. I certainly am not going to leave something I've been working on for 4 weeks with someone who can't give me a yes or no answer whether they want to take it to grade it or not.
Now I know for sure that my problem with this new teacher is not related to my problem with change in general. It's not that it's change I don't like, it's that this change is not a good one. I read something on Karoda's blog that I think I need to adopt as my new mantra for a while. "if you don't change, life will change you" and "the only people who don't change are 6 feet under". So true, but so hard for me for some reason. I just don't want the good times to end I guess.
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