The guy teaching the classes is obviously passionate about all kinds of sewing arts, particularly hand sewing work (darning is closer to sewing than to knitting, which I didn’t really understand until I took the class).
I’m working on making sashiko patches to cover the holes our new cats have made in the old comforter cover on our bed and I’ve got a small darning project in mind to repair the pockets on a cardigan.
What you need to understand is that I started with the attitude that I was no good at any of this stuff. I mean, I can thread a needle and put in a hem, sew on a button, stuff like that.
But although I learned how to crochet (which I liked better than knitting) and even did a bit of embroidery when I was young, I never felt like I was good at it. So I stopped doing it.
It didn’t help that many years back I took an aptitude test in which I scored 5 percentile on the test for using small tools and other fine motor coordination. While it was useful to know that I’d better make sure I had some job skills that didn’t involve putting together tiny electronic parts – which always sounded like the job from hell to me – it did discourage me from trying things like decorative patching or jewelry making.
As I’ve noted here before, I started taking drawing classes a few years back. I’d always thought I couldn’t draw. That’s what they told me when I was a kid and took an art class.
I just figured all this stuff required natural talent and good fine motor skills and I didn’t have those so I couldn’t do it.
I was wrong.
There are several things I was wrong about.
First of all, I can clearly do these things, especially if someone shows me how they actually work.
Drawing, for example, is really about seeing. The first class I took was based on the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, and while I don’t think the left and right brain side theories hold up, that particular approach to learning to draw was very helpful to me because it taught me how to look at what I was trying to draw.
I also learned it was OK to erase, as well as some tricks for seeing the relationship among the things you were drawing.
In the sewing classes, I learned some little skills. In darning you don’t make knots, but you do have some systems for making sure the final product won’t fray. In doing sashiko, you occasionally make a knot, but there are tricks for that, too – tricks I didn’t know.
There are more skills to sewing than threading a needle and winding it through cloth.
It occurs to me that I should take this teacher’s class in hand sewing, and maybe machine sewing, even though I more or less know how to do those things. It turns out there are a lot of little things that make it easier.
Another thing that’s really important about learning to do new things is even more basic: You don’t have to be good.
First of all, you can be clumsy at it when you’re starting out. You don’t know how to do it, so of course you’ll make mistakes.
But even after you’ve done it awhile and have the concept, this doesn’t have to be something big and important. You don’t have to draw a prize-winning picture or make a piece of clothing that will gain you a lot of praise.
These are things you’re doing for yourself, so all you have to do is get good enough at them to make you happy while you’re doing them.
(And if you don’t enjoy them, you can quit.)
When I’ve taught some self defense, I’ve often told students that you don’t have to get to be a superstar fighter to defend yourself. You don’t have to be good.
You’re not trying to win gold in the Olympics; you just want to be able to get away from someone dangerous. It doesn’t take great skill, just a little knowledge.
Now I’m all for studying something intensely – I have spent most of my life training in some martial art or other, mostly Aikido. There is a lot to be said for going deep in a practice or in intellectual study or in making art.
But you don’t have to bring that same attitude to everything you do. You can just learn to do something for fun or because it’s a useful skill.
Not everything you do has to be important or a way to make a living.
It took me quite a while to figure that out.
Something else that dawned on me while I was learning Scotch weave and basket weave darning the other night: hand sewing is the polar opposite of so-called “AI.”
You’re using your very human body to understand how something is put together and then to do it.
I notice the classes in sewing and other fabric arts fill up fast at the East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse, which is a place that sells used art supplies, fabrics, and a broad assortment of other things you can use to make things.
The art classes at Studio One – which is part of Oakland’s Parks and Recreation Department – often fill up as well.
I think a lot of people are hungry to learn how to make things themselves.
We all brought our phones to class, of course, and took some pictures of what we were being shown. It’s not that people want to throw out tech.
It’s just kind of obvious that there’s more to life than that.
Great advice! I took a workshop in cyanotype a few months ago. Learned a lot from my fellow participants as well as from the teacher.
That sounds like a fun thing to learn, too.
I keep thinking I’d like to learn to make prints. Or to get back in the darkroom. I know someone who has a source for the film my old camera uses. So many temptations to play with stuff.
As a self-taught seamstress and knitter, I really ought to learn to darn properly (which is to say, I think I know how, but it never works very well).
In learning new things I try to remember what my 5-year-old daughter’s ski instructor told her class on the first day: “You have to fall 100 times before you really learn to ski.” This genius move meant that every time a kid fell down, he or she scrambled to her feet, triumphant that they were one fall closer to goal.
And yeah: you don’t have to be perfect at it. Just good enough to accomplish what you want to accomplish.
I’ve always been more or less self taught at sewing and related skills, too, though I’ve had some help from friends who knew what they were doing. The thing I realized in the class is that there are little tricks that make more sense when someone shows them to you. Understanding things that aren’t obvious to the beginner is really helpful.
My mother always said anyone who could read could learn to cook or sew. This was by way of convincing me not to take Home Ec in school, which I wouldn’t have done anyway because I was terrified that I’d be bad at it. (Funny. I played in band, took speech, participated in debate, but I was scared of being judged on housewifely skills.) But while I taught myself to cook with very little trouble, I never quite got to the point with sewing and such where I felt like I truly understood what I was doing, despite making clothes that I wore. I suspect knowing a few things or tools that make the process easier would help.
And if you want to learn to darn, check the East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse website. They’re having classes in various things each Wednesday for a couple of hours and given that darning was completely full for my class, they’ll probably do it again soon.
I’ve been knitting for two weeks after having wanted to learn for decades – all it took was YouTube videos to get the basics. I’ve been practicing a lot, and luckily know a lot–a LOT–of knitters, so when I know what to ask, I have people I can ask. It’s so fun!
I need to try some You Tube videos to pick up more pointers. Tech can be useful.
My mother used the drawing book as part of her MA, which was on maths and learning. This is when I realised that most of us who are told we are not capable or who have low level skills… sometimes just need a different way of learning. Part of the problem is those who tell us “You can do this” without finding a route by which we *can* do this, I suspect, from personal experience. I’m told that everyone can sing and everyone can draw, and just saying it doesn’t make it so. The path you follow (find a skill you really want to learn and find a good teacher) however, can change everything. Or not. Depending. Through my mother and her research I found that I genuinely cannot draw, but that I am very good at other things.
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One of the things I liked about my drawing class was drawing something upside down so that I learned to look at the lines instead of saying “oh, that’s a face”. That really helped me learn to look at something and break it down into component parts that I could draw. I took a second class from another teacher and am really glad I didn’t take his class first. I’m not going to do any great art, but I find it fascinating when I start drawing something and realize how much is there.
As for singing: I had a music teacher in school who could teach almost anyone to sing. She turned out an incredible choir at the Quaker Church in our tiny town (population about 300) — they sang Handel’s Messiah one year. There was one person who had an incredible voice, but Mrs. Boyle got the best out of everyone there. She taught us to sight sing in elementary school. I later took voice lessons from her. I’ve never really doubted I could sing, and I think that was her doing.
The right teacher makes a lot of difference. It helps a lot if they provide both useful guidance and they don’t make you feel incompetent even when you’re just getting started.