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For this unit our class made a collaborative quilt. So the people in my group got to do this twice 🙂

The garden – sustainability and connectedness.

1. After reviewing some of the texts in class, and online links about quilting, sketch a few designs of the piece you would like to complete to contribute to this group quilt.

Here’s mine. It is based on one of Naomi’s drawings.

2.  Use your creative design to layout your block – cut your fabric into pieces and begin to lay your collage of fabric onto the principle backing. stitch them onto the background using a variety of stitches you have learned. – running stitch, straight stitch,

This is what I picked out for the ground. I was inspired by watching Kathleen Baer’s course on Curious Mondo. It’s called From Traditional Quilting to Contemporary Art Quilting  There was a free live tutorial and I actually managed to watch most of it.

Naomi told me I had to do it over. She wanted it to look more like her picture.

3.   Draw out your desired pattern onto your fabric pieces. Cut and iron each one and then pin and stitch into place.

I didn’t actually do it this way. I freely cut most of my pieces leaning to the big side and then trimmed them down. I started by hand sewing, but it was taking a long time, so I broke out the sewing machine.

I think I am glad Naomi told me to pick different colours.

But, I am also glad that I watched Baer’s course, because it made me realize that all my experimenting is actually okay. My mom’s inner critic always made her say that her quilts weren’t good enough to sell at the craft fairs because her corner’s didn’t match up, but there is a good deal more freedom in an art quilt.

The ecological message I was going for was how we can be focused on the present, which can prevent us from having a long term plan. So the flower, which seems healthy, fills our vision, but the tree in the background is still present and needs us to consider it in our ecological plans.

Oh. My. Gosh!

I actually love this. I love upcycling! I had so many ideas for what I wanted to make and I couldn’t choose.

Click to see my Pinterest board on handmade model ships

So there are all kinds of ways to integrate textile arts into the curriculum.

Metis Finger Weaving

Last semester, I was teaching Metis finger weaving to grade two classes. This brought First People’s principles of learning into math and in some ways made the math part of the activity incidental to the social studies part. The math was essential, but it was activated from prior learning as it was modelled in the example, then applied during a guided process and eventually subsumed into the weaving process as just one step of dancing hands and strings.

As an aside, I think I would modify the S.T.A.R. method to something more intuitive for kids. I didn’t actually follow the steps of the STAR method because arrange and regroup are not enactive words for grade two students. The STAR method actually used arrange to mean make your pattern and regroup to mean put everything nice and tidy back in front of you. I shifted to using the terms to mean make sure everything is flat and not twisted and then make your pattern. It’s not that I think kids shouldn’t learn difficult vocabulary, but that the arbitrary vocabulary used to support learning should be a closer signifier to the process, since its purpose is to trigger the next step.

STAR Method                                                                   My Adaptation S.T.E.P (because we do it one step at a time)

• S    Select                                                                S    Select
• T   Travel                                                                T   Travel
• A   Arrange                                                            E    Everything flat
• R   Regroup                                                           P    Pattern

Shannon ______ said she would be able to bring in her Metis scarf to show the kids at the school. We tried to find a way to make that happen earlier, but it didn’t come to fruition. So this will be a really good way to authenticate the experience for the grade 2 classes at Queen Elizabeth Elementary.

Core Competencies

Anything to do with design is a fabulous way to help students figure out and progress in creative and critical thinking, personal and social responsibility and communication. My earlier reflection on my cardboard weaving shows that I was trying to move from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset

If I were teaching this lesson to children and wanted to focus on growth mindset, I would probably start with an “I can…” statement. For example, “I can explore ways to add different materials into cardboard weaving without worrying about making mistakes.” Then I would have the students reflect by deciding where they fit on this scale: “a bit like me” “quite like me” or “very much like me.”

After the exercise, they could reflect again and see if they had grown. This kind of goal setting fits under personal.

If I wanted to take an inquiry approach, I would pose an essential question. Maybe this one “How can I use cardboard weaving to explore ways to put different materials together to create a unified project?”

This activates their creative and critical thinking as they select materials, examine how they go together, ideate different designs and edit down to one that they think follows strong design principles. As a support person during the exploration, I can further the learning by doing mini lessons on things like design principles, but I expect some of them would have already figured it out during their exploration and so it would be much more relevant to them.

Other cool things

Digital math with weaving

https://theconversation.com/indigenous-basket-weaving-makes-an-excellent-digital-math-lesson-110094

I am often surrounded by naïve art because I have young children. It feels very creative and uninhibited to me.

Teeny Tiny Lines, Marcus, age 3

Flower, Marcus, age 3

Quilt and Scribble, Naomi, age 7