On Saturday 24th May we had another workshop at the Poly in Falmouth. Originally this was to be a glass workshop, but the leader was unable to come, so the lovely Christiane Berghoff stepped in to lead a group workshop on cord-making. We had three different methods of making cord to play with: crochet, knitting (French knitting) and the lucette (a weird quasi-pagan looking instrument that, had we not all been lovely people, would have been the subject of fighting over).
Christiane talked about the ideas that concern her practice – sustainability, the importance of community, and the centrality of making. Then we each taught each other a skill that we already had (I had none to begin with….) and everyone swapped around, so that by the end we’d each had a go on each of the three cord-making methods, and we’d each taught someone at least one skill (perhaps one we’d learnt – or in my case almost-learnt – fairly recently). Another of Christiane’s concerns is that ability to let go into lack of control or failure when learning new things. I got plenty of experience of that.
It’s interesting how some of us seemed to prefer one way of making to another – there didn’t seem to be any reason for this. It’s also interesting how much we loved the feel of the wood (lucette) or bamboo (knitting needles). It was a very tactile session – well they all are, but we talked a lot about how the implements felt in our hands and how comforting wood can feel.
Co-Creating CARE 
Reblogged this on one stitch at a time.