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15 April, 2025

Mini Tutorial: How to Tie a Square Knot

2025-04-15T11:46:43-05:00Tutorials, Videos|0 Comments

I use square knots often in class projects and I had a whole group recently that had never done one before so I thought I would make a very fast video tutorial. When I learned to tie a square knot in Girl Scouts a zillion years ago, we learned the mneumonic “left over right, right over left” to help remember the steps. In a class I took a few days ago she said “short over long, short over long”. Both of those work great!

Think to yourself “left over right, right over left” or “short over long” as you watch my hands tie the square knot in this video.

9 April, 2025

The Power of Answering Questions

2025-04-09T15:42:29-05:00An Artist's Life|0 Comments

I’m working right now on a big art project that requires a little research. I love doing research and this project is especially fun because it involves animals.

Google has gotten less and less reliable for information that you can trust to not be something that an AI bot invented, so I wanted to go directly to the source, which means I have been emailing zoos, aquariums, and rescue organizations to ask for some simple animal facts. I tried to keep my questions easy to answer: asking for one specific fact about a particular animal. The responses to my questions have been really interesting and wildly different.

More than half of the places I contacted haven’t responded at all. Which I guess isn’t completely unexpected although it’s kind of disappointing. The ones that really stand out to me are the ones who have responded in a really negative way. I’ve had three emails that basically say: “We get too many requests like this every day and we just don’t take the time to answer questions. We are sure you will understand.”

It’s ironic that they took the time to email me to tell me that they don’t have time to answer emails. While I am sure that they do get lots of emails and I understand that, I can’t imagine ever responding that way to someone who emailed me with a question. It feels exactly like they are saying “Your project is so dumb that it’s not worth our time to answer you.” It’s amazing how much rejections like that are discouraging.

To contrast that, some organizations have been amazing: sending me friendly, chatty emails about their animals and answering with exactly the facts I needed. Some have pointed me to extra resources or other organizations that they thought might give me some additional details. I’ve gotten to know a couple of animals by name and talked to their caretakers that work closely with them every day. (Myrtle the sea turtle likes to eat cucumbers as a treat.) The project has grown and expanded; I’ve added new ideas because of these conversations.

The project now feels like a collaboration with these great new people I’ve met; a feeling of community that comes from sharing stories with someone else. And when I finish this project, I get to share those stories over and over again with more people. All because I asked a question and someone took the time to answer.

20 March, 2025

How do I Start to Learn Hand Embroidery?

2025-03-20T17:19:48-05:00Embroidery, Everything Else|1 Comment

I had a great email question a few days ago from a person who wanted to know how to get started learning to do hand embroidery. A friend of hers had taken several of my classes and said “Talk to Becka!” but she didn’t know what to choose. So I thought it would be helpful to write a post to help everyone find the right place for you to get started learning to embroider with me. I teach in a whole bunch of different formats so it can be hard to know where to start. Whether you like to learn in-person, online, from a book, from a pattern, or one-on-one, I’ve got everything broken down so you can find the right fit for you.

Beginners start here.

  • Check my Classes & Events page for upcoming Zoom and in-person classes. These class projects usually feature 1-3 different stitches so you can get an idea if you like to embroider and all of the materials are included so you don’t have to go out and buy a bunch of tools and materials.
  • If you like to work from written instructions, then check out the patterns in my Etsy shop. The Sheep, Cat and Dog are especially great for beginners. These patterns need just basic materials like scissors, needle, thread, and some felt and they have a QR code link to demo videos of each stitch.
  • If you like to work from videos, then look on my Online Classes page. The Tropical Fish Bag or Sashiko Inspired Squares are great beginner classes. These each have a printed fabric panel with guidelines on it to help you make your stitches. You can order these from my Spoonflower shop and use any embroidery threads you have already.

Then try…

Ready for a challenge…

18 March, 2025

Teacher Tips: What to do when a class gets cancelled

2025-03-18T12:41:01-05:00An Artist's Life, Classes & Teaching|Comments Off on Teacher Tips: What to do when a class gets cancelled

I’ve been teaching for more than 20 years as an independent contractor. That means that most of the time, I am partnered up with an organization like my county library system, an art center, shop or museum and teaching a class with them. Sometimes those classes get cancelled. There are lots of different reasons for that (like pandemics and weather) but most often it’s because there are not enough people signed up to make the math work out. So I thought I’d write a little about what I do when a class gets cancelled, especially for those of you who might be new to teaching or thinking about teaching your first class.

Don’t take it personally.

My first tip is to not take it personally. There are so many reasons that people don’t sign up for classes and almost all of them have nothing to do with you. I was supposed to teach a class tonight, which is why this topic is on my mind. We realized much later after we set the date for this one, that it falls right in the middle of spring break for the school district that art center is in. Oops. I don’t live in that district so I didn’t even think about that, but it means a lot of people are busy. I’m also a new teacher for this venue. Which means the community there doesn’t know me yet.

Before I worked as an artist full time, I was the education administrator at an art center. I scheduled all of the adults classes. It happened SO often there that we had a kind of unwritten expectation that a class would always cancel the very first time you offered it. There’s a commonly quoted stat that says someone has to see something like an ad 7 times before they will act on it. I think this is the case with these classes. People only registered the second time they saw it, thinking “Oh it looked fun, that must be popular since it’s there again, I should sign up”.

It’s really discouraging, don’t get me wrong. There’s a lot of work that goes into proposing and planning a class that can seem like a waste so I have some other things I do to try and capture some of that back in a positive way.

Talk to your partner.

Communicate with your partner org. Often they are the ones taking registrations and talking to people about the class much more than I am. What questions did people ask about the class? Was there “buzz”?

I once answered a “call for class proposals” from a shop who said their customers were super enthusiastic about a class on needle felting. But that class was cancelled without a single registration. Based on the feedback the shop got, I think it was priced too high because of the tools and materials needed to get you started in a total beginners class. In retrospect, it would have maybe been better to do a demo or a tiny make-and-take project that could act like an appetizer for class. That was valuable information.

Recently I pitched a class to one organization and they didn’t love the project and so we did something else. But I saved it and pitched the same project again to a different partner, who added it to the schedule. The students loved it so much, one suggested I do a whole series of classes based around the theme of that project. I trust my partner orgs to know their community (who they work with every day) better than I do and I think both orgs made the right call.

What can you reuse?

Classes take a lot of preparation. There is a project to design, samples to make, materials to select. When a class is cancelled, I look at what I’ve got prepared and think about how else I could use it because I’ve already done all of that work. So the first thing I think about is: could I teach this in a different format?

  • Could it be an online class?
  • A pattern to sell on Etsy?
  • A tutorial for my blog?
  • A make-along or educational posts on social media?
  • Could I combine it with another project to make a more advanced class? Or simplify it more for beginners?

I almost never teach something once and drop it. I like to think of my classes having more of a life cycle that I can adapt and grow and change to use different ways.

Look at everything with a fresh eye.

“Don’t judge a book by its cover” is a really common phrase but we absolutely all do it. The title, description and photo that go with your class are a tiny bit of information that are trying to communicate so much information. I was working on proposals for a conference yesterday that had a 450 character limit to describe a 2 day class. Getting all of the info for 2 days of class into 3-4 sentences is HARD.

Before I put it out there again, I look at everything that I used to represent the class and try to change it up. Sometimes I make new samples to photograph or just take new photos of the samples I have. I look at the description and think about how I might change the focus or “vibe” of the class. Can I rewrite it to sound more casual? more structured? more technique focused? What fits with the other classes that are being taught at that venue? How can I change the title to make it more clear/fun/appealing?

I try to get someone else to read the description and ask me questions about it. What doesn’t make sense? Or have someone describe back to me what they think is going to happen in class when they read the description.

I remember working on a submitted class proposal when I was an arts admin. It was a great class: good description, good price, good project. But the class samples in the photos were so unappealing. It was a class sewing undies, which I think our audience would have signed up for, but the photos were terrible. There were three samples but all made from the same materials so they looked mostly the same and the colors were odd and unflattering. The photos were dark and looked like they’d been photographed on the floor (which made me think of dirty laundry). Those photos were not communicating all the good parts of the class.

Fill the time.

One of the hardest things about the pandemic shutdown was that I got a “sorry your class/event has been cancelled” email about once a week for months. I felt like I had been slowly crushed. The thing I learned from that was to not let my brain get into a cycle of “I was supposed to be teaching a class right now, but it got cancelled and I am a failure.” And the way to do that was to fill that time I had set aside to teach the class with something good. Over the pandemic, I illustrated a children’s book in all of my newly free time.

Since I was supposed to be teaching tonight, I am instead going to try out a new recipe for grilled paneer with a mint and cilantro sauce. I’ve never made it before so that will be a fun project because I love to cook. A few weeks ago another class was cancelled and I used that day instead to play with a new design and it turned into a new pattern for my Etsy shop; something that wasn’t on my planned goals for the year. It feels like an awesome bonus instead of something discouraging.

11 March, 2025

International Art & Found Day 2025

2025-03-11T11:01:26-05:00An Artist's Life, Freebies & Patterns|2 Comments

One of my goals for my business this year was to “Bring more joy.” and tomorrow’s project is going to do exactly that. I am participating in International Art & Found Day, a day when thousands of artworks from artists all over the world will be placed within their local communities for neighboring residents to find. #artandfoundday

I found out about this from a follow artist friend and it happens to land on my Dad’s birthday. What better way to celebrate (since my dad is also an artist) than to share some art out in the world. And when I read the history of the project, the reason that the founder chose March 12 is because it was her dad’s birthday too.

The idea is that artists package up any kind of art and put it out in the world for others to find. Tomorrow is supposed to be pretty nice weather, so I am going to take a walk and put things in my neighborhood. I will be sharing photos on my Instagram, kind of like a scavenger hunt.

According to the website right now, there are 1600+ artists participating from 47 different countries. That link will let you check the map and see if there is some art happening near you. If not, I am ALSO going to hide a couple of photos on my website for a virtual art drop on Wednesday March 12. If you find one of those photos and email me a screen shot I will send you an art drop surprise.

What art am I going to share? I always make a sample along with my students when I teach a class so I have all kinds of cute felt animals: frogs, sheep, toucans, cats, dogs. I have more samples than I will ever need so I am really excited to share these and send them off to new homes.

5 March, 2025

Embroidery Tutorial: Tying a Knot

2025-03-05T11:52:46-06:00Everything Else|Comments Off on Embroidery Tutorial: Tying a Knot

A few posts back, I wrote a tutorial about how to prevent and untie knots in your embroidery, but sometimes you need a knot to finish off a row of stitches. This is the way I tie knots in thicker fabrics like felt or fleece where you can stitch just part way through the fabric without it showing on the front side. Here’s a video showing a short demonstration.

The step where you put the fabric down on the table and hold it with your fingers is actually more important than you might think. It’s easy, especially with felt, to pull or stretch the fabric as you pull on the thread. Holding it against the table, helps stabilize it so you are less likely to pull it apart.

If you have a thinner fabric, you can tie a knot the same way but you need to make that first anchor stitch a little differently, by stitching into the back of another stitch nearby or in a way that you can hide it under another stitch.

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