Come Stitch With Me

In elementary schools, Genius Hour is a dedicated time where students can explore anything that interests them. Some sort of output is usually required in the form of a physical object, writing piece or digital multimedia presentation. Our Friday clubs are my school’s version of Genius Hour.

My Stitching Stallions were required to design and make blocks for Block Party, which is a kid-focused quilting exhibit (open to all K-12 students in Georgia) that will be on display during Georgia Celebrates Quilts in June, 2019.  Most of my kids had never touched a sewing machine before the end of January.  They love to sew long lines of fabric together, so we decided on strip pieced blocks as the overall design for everyone.  The kids cut the bulk of the strips themselves using my Sizzix machine and strip dies. Some of the kids really took their time and kept a fairly consistent seam allowance throughout the entire block construction. They carefully selected colors that would complement one another and arranged their strips in a certain color order. Other kids took a lot of creative liberties with sewing wide seam allowances because they wanted different width strips, or sewing the strip directly on top of the other one because they liked the look.  Their written block descriptions are due back Monday. I can’t wait to see what they wrote about the experience!

This Friday sewing club has been a treasured part of the past four years I’ve spent at this school. We learned on Friday afternoon that there would be no more clubs for the remainder of the year due to the new state-mandated testing schedule.  The rumor mill (usually accurate) also says there will be no clubs next year.  This confirms my feeling that it’s time to dismantle sewing studio B,  re-home four sewing machines and divest the bulk of the craft materials (rather than waiting until the end of the year).  Two sewing machines and some supplies will be kept in the Media Center for Maker Space activities.

Two years ago, I attended the event in Savannah.  Had a BLAST!  Immediately put QuiltCon 2019 in Nashville on my calendar. I had a good time and met some nice folks, but I left without the warm fuzzies that I did in Savannah.

Why?

1. Downtown Nashville is very crowded.
2. Parking was expensive.
3. Conference hotel prices were outrageous.
4. Food vendors were confined to one small space where the dining seating (roped off to boot) also served as the seating for the demo stage.  I had to eat my lunch sitting on the floor of the loading dock.  Not cool.
5. Unless you sported vibrantly colored hair, nose rings, full sleeve tattoos and a hipster vibe, some of the vendors weren’t that interested in you. I saw more than one customer leave an armload of merchandise in a booth because they grew tired of waiting for someone to take their money. Apparently Instagram followers are more important than paying customers. 
6. There was no communication at all from QuiltCon or the instructor regarding a required kit fee for one class.  This caught several class attendees by surprise, many of whom don’t carry cash.  We had to pay the kit fee at the door before we entered the classroom. Why wasn’t the kit fee included in the class fee?
7. Dear instructors: please remember your students paid money to learn and sew- not listen to you constantly pitch the various products you sell, represent, or serve as a brand ambassador for during the entire class.  Once, maybe twice, is more than enough.

Remember the oxygen mask instructions given before each flight by the flight attendant? “Put YOUR mask on FIRST – then help the person next you.”

Honestly, mid-winter break came at the right time.

I’ve been feeling out-of-sorts for the past 3 weeks.  Tired, cranky and ever so grateful for our pseudo-snow day.  That gave me a very much needed one day off to regroup and make it until mid-winter break. My applied linguistics class has an insane amount of homework and I’ve had one hell of a time making any meaningful connections with the required IPA transcription activities to my daily library work. Thankfully, it’s about over.

In the day job, we’ve had some professional development sessions designed to help us better understand ourselves and our students.  Teachers tend to be very selfless and giving, but we have to learn to be selfish and put ourselves first or we’re not going to be any good for anybody.  My school work environment meets the training leader’s definition of “a trauma environment.”  Hmmm. Think that might be one of the reasons so many people leave each year?

After 48 hours of wholesome food, proper hydration, vitamins & supplements, sleep/naps and mega time spent reading, I FINALLY feel good again.  Message received!!! I have to slow down. set boundaries and take better care of me. 

Oh, and quilt!