Essential Question: How can I explain the importance of personal style in an eco-friendly manner while simultaneously experimenting with my own?
Describe a moment: This past Monday I spent one hour on a facetime session with a pro-sewer. The hour-long session was my first attempt to learn the basics of hand sewing. During the session, I attached a charm onto an old tie. I attached the charm to the area that had a stain. In the beginning, this was really difficult. However, as I practiced looping the thread around the charm, I slowly learned the needed steps. Here are the steps for securing the charm onto the tie by using the hole given. This is not the full steps needed to secure the charm, merely one moment/aspect.
- Cut the thread to a little more the shoulder-width apart.
- Thread the needle. If you have trouble, make sure the tip of the thread is a clean-cut (all of the fibers strings are the same length)
- Push the needle to the middle of the thread so that the needle is on one end of the string.
- Loop the two ends of the thread around your finger and make a knot.
- Place the charm on the tie, with a hole on the top.
- Starting from the top of the fabric, push the needle through the fabric that is very close to the charm.
- Come out of the fabric and push the needle through the hole.
- Loop the thread over the hole so that you are back where you started in step 6.
- Do steps 6-8 until the hole is covered by a thread.
- Then push the needle through the thread out onto the other side.
- Before you tighter the previous movement, with the excess thread, make a circle.
- Make a knot by having the needle go through the circle and tighten.
- Do steps 10 – 12 three to two times so that you made at least two solid knots.
- Cut the string.
Here is a picture of the outcome:
Analyze the Moment
Challenge: I had to do steps 1-14 twice in order to understand. The first time, I messed up and it was all messy. Instead of leaving the mess, I persevered through the frustration of not knowing. I told myself: it’s okay that I messed up, but let’s try again. The second time it was a lot neater!
How Does This Answer My Essential Question: Not only am I practicing courage by learning a new skill that is complicated, but I am also answering my direct question by mending a broken — or stained– tie (sometimes I wear ties as necklaces) so that it is no longer broken. I am also using creativity by thinking outside the box and using charms instead of a patch/fabric. [I plan on covering all of the stains with more charms]
Passion: This shows passion as this was confusing — especially to learn online. Writing the steps in my own “language” (as I know it may not make sense to many people but makes perfect sense to me) shows that I am thinking and understanding this skill much like how I understand a math concept. In calculus, I write notes on how something works in my words and most of the time, it’s a very confusing language that doesn’t make sense to others. However, after I write these notes I often am able to fully understand how a concept works. Although It’s still confusing, these step-by-step notes definitely helped me conceptualize and remember the steps.