Dynamic Sisters and Handbags

 Still in New Orleans, I took three classes. 

The first was "Dynamics of Teaching", led by Val McAleenan. Unsurprisingly it was about teaching Needlepoint. I'm not sure that I will ever teach embroidery in a formal way, but I thought it would be interesting to hear a teacher talk about the inter-relationships that happen in an embroidery class. As someone who has in the past trained people in basic IT skills and IT Security (and who tries to be a good boy in class), I was aware of the different types of students found in the business environment, and was, in a way not surprised to find that all of the same types attend embroidery classes. The big difference is that in a business environment the attendee has generally been sent, while in a Needlepoint class, the attendee has chosen to be there and has paid good $$$ for the privilege, so the way you treat the difficult or disruptive has to be, if not different, perhaps a bit more patient. 

I've done a little ad-hoc teaching since then, and I always let my student or students work at their own pace. You can't do this is a class of more than four or five, so you, as the teacher, have to be prepared to sit after class with the slower stitcher to make sure they know what they're doing and how to do it. I don't think there can be anything worse for a student than to be sitting without an idea of what to do. 

At one point it brought back to my memory my first French lesson. As usual, having returned from holiday in Singapore, I ended up in the school hospital for a week. Long story, put briefly, I had an allergy to the school issue vests which made me come out in spots, which the school assumed was some evil foreign disease I had picked up in the mysterious East, so I was hauled off to the school hospital for two weeks. Having been released, one of my first classes was French, of which I had absolutely no knowledge. The teacher (an ex-Polish cavalryman of WWII vintage) immediately rounded on this new face and asked me a question - in French. I had no idea. I shrugged, said I didn't understand, he got angry, he shouted at me. It took me some moments to understand that he was actually speaking English - yes, his English accent was like something out of a bad comedy movie. I became, in his eyes, the class failure, and from then on I dreaded French.

Lesson? Take care how you speak to students. A few badly chosen words can destroy confidence in seconds.

I hated French from that moment, but I'd like to put it on record that I had great respect for 'The Wee Pole' as he was nicknamed, as a man. You may have heard the story of Polish Cavalry charging German tanks in 1939. He was one of those cavalrymen. You can't not respect that.

Well, that was a long story for a one day class. My second class was with Janet Zickler Casey, and was called "Let The Good Times Roll!" (Or "Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler!" - which I still pronounce in a Polish-French accent.)

As you can see, it's a handbag. The Fleur-de-lis is beaded, as is the handle. The class included teaching us how to make the beaded handle as well as how to stitch the body of the handbag. What drew me to this class was the teacher, whom I had already met a number of times. Jane-Beth had taken a few classes with her and raved about how good she was and how much fun her classes were.

On the first day of class, yes, me in my kilt as usual, the lady next to me asked, in a friendly manner, why a man would take a class to make a beaded handbag. I couldn't resist it, "a boy just can't have enough handbags," I replied. That broke the ice as the rest of the class realised I was just as nuts about Needlepoint as they were.

It was indeed a fun class, with lots of discussion around colour choices and personalising the design. There was lots of laughter, lots of stitching, and lots of discussion about colour, stitches and much else. You'll meet the handbag again.

The third class I attended in New Orleans was "Sisters" by Nancy Cucci. Obviously NOLA was my 'beading' year.

I chose this class for a number of reasons. I loved the design, particularly the repetition of the same stitches, but not in the same order, in the large squares. To me it made the point that in a family the siblings may all have started with the same genetic material, but we all become distinct individuals. I liked the colour selection too, the dark balancing the light, the overlaps of the squares slipping into companionship rather than opposition and the background pulling them all together like the members of a single household.

I had been wary of beads for a long time, but I wanted to take a class with Nancy. She was a great teacher, very relaxed and and yet attentive to every student. Thanks to her I am no longer afraid of small shiny things. It was great fun and I really enjoyed every minute I spent working on "Sisters". I still haven't decided which Brother, I have three, deserves this.

Sisters measures 5½ x 10½ inches and is worked on 18 count canvas. It took me 75 hours to stitch.

If you like the look of "Sisters", you can find another version in Melita's blog, Melitastitches4fun. There's a link at the top of the page.

Things We Do On Our Holidays

We attend the ANG Seminar as often as we can manage. Apart from the classes and the shoppertunities, we like that it moves around, which means that we get to see a different place each year. The days at Seminar are filled with classes, events and meetings, so we always try and arrive a few days early to do touristy stuff.

We walked where we could, and we found the Streetcars. That was fun, even if we did get on the wrong one and end up at the terminus. Still, we saw dozens of fine looking houses and beautiful gardens. Walking, I had the chance to admire the wrought-iron work on the balconies of houses. I particularly liked this one.

We also found our way (a fairly short walk from our hotel) to the World War II museum. It is big, it is impressive, and it is educational. It's not all 'Blood and Glory', with sections on The Home Front, war industry and a massive archive, as well as many items of the machinery of war. There were tanks, Jeeps, aeroplanes and trucks, and right in the main entrance, a Higgins Boat. And next to the main entrance was a really good Forties themed cafe.

I had heard of Andrew Higgins. Eisenhower is said to have referred to him as 'the man who won the war'. Higgins designed and built the thousands of landing craft required for the Pacific campaign and the Allied landings in North Africa and Europe.

Obviously the people of New Orleans think highly of him as one of their 'Sons' because the street that leads to the Museum is called:

We also visited the Confederate Museum. It was much smaller, perhaps more personal because of that, but equally interesting. Such places may be frowned upon by many, but I think it's important that they exist in some form or other to remind us that history has two (or more) sides, and that to forget it is to repeat it.

Then there's the food. We went with a group of needle pointers to a well known, I might say famous, restaurant that has been there since forever. The food was incredible, a total melt in the mouth experience, and they had good Scotch Whisky. I think I did cause a bit of a stir. The MD, a very nice chap, seemed to find this man-in-the-kilt quite attractive (maybe he just wanted to find out if the rumours about what Scotsmen wear under their kilts are true). Then there was the young lady with her partner who kept looking, and whose expression indicated that she wasn't sure, ours being a group of ladies of a certain age, whether I was a man in a skirt or a hirsute woman (I have a moustache.)

And there was a traditional Jazz band playing in the street outside. As the saying goes, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.

But what about the classes? Of course I took classes and I'll write about them next time.