As the year comes to an end, it is time to wrap up my learning project. Learning how to crochet has been a very very fun assignment, and I am glad I got this experience to try learning more about one of my own passions and hobbies – and excuse it as homework LOL. I also feel like I have more confidence to show everyone what I have made and tell them about my hobby, instead of hiding it all in my room where no one will ever see it! This journey has definitely taught me a lot about crochet, but also a lot about art and how to celebrate the progress I make! In the beginning I chose to improve my crochet skills and knowledge because I wanted to make a baby blanket for my brothers baby that will be born in August. This assignment gave me time to work on that blanket guilt-free and allowed me to improve my skills and find tools to advance quickly. I used many different online tools to learn these skills including YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and several other blogs from students. I also used many different tools to share my learning including Notability, iMovie, SpeedEditor, and Photos. Learning Project RecapWeek 1: Got Me Hooked: Introducing My Learning Project To start this project off, I wanted to set clear goals and reflect on why I was passionate about crochet in the first place. This was also my first attempt at blogging anything, or even being casual in an assignment at all!
Week 2: Learning Through Viewing The first step I took was finding a tutorial online to start off this baby blanket! I wasn’t sure what I wanted it to look like, but found this very cute tutorial online to follow!
Week 3: Learning Through Language This week, I tried to follow a typed pattern for a heart pillow, but after many attempts, I was unsuccessful. I wasn’t ready for the pattern reading I was working towards, so switched up my plan to an easier one.
Week 4: 'Directing' the Classroom This week was a combination week of our technology post with our learning project post! I tried out iMovie to update my learning project, which was not so bad!
Week 5: Crochet Away This post was made over our school break, which gave me lots of time to sit down and work on my projects! I completed many projects with help of motivation from online sources.
Week 6: Slowing Progress… This week went by slowly, as I had to get back to school and do homework and study (borrringgg). It felt very unproductive in comparison to my previous week, but I still worked on my pattern for my baby blanket!
Week 7: Crochet Bouquet!! This week I made something that I LOVE! Two of my favourite things, flowers and crochet came together (by me!) and now decorate my room beautifully!
Week 8: Growing Flowers and Minds This week has to be my favourite week, although I do love all the work I’ve done. This week was impactful, and changed my mind about the things that I make, and this realization really changed my assignment mindset back into an open and excited mindset!
Week 9: Hopping to the Finish Line This week I decided to make a pattern using all of my knowledge I’ve learned so far. This pattern is for something I am working on, but have no finished yet!
Week 10: Reusing Yarn, Reducing Sweaters and Recycling Ideas! This week I took apart an old sweater that did not fit, and used the yarn for new projects.
What I learnedThis past semester, I have really learned a lot about crochet! Through many different sources, I learned many different things. Looking back at my original goals, I think I reached them for the most part! Although I did not follow the timeline I had originally set, and ended up making way more items than I had planned – I think I surpassed my goals for this learning project, and am walking away with more knowledge than I even knew was possible! Online LearningThis Learning Project journey has really inspired me in many ways. I find myself using the internet for helpful things, like learning about everything that I can instead of mindless scrolling a lot more. Through these ten weeks, I have reflected greatly on my online presence and my use of the internet. Although I have often been one to hate on social media and our dependence on the internet, I have a new found appreciation for everything online. I am glad that I can see what other people are making, doing and excited about in their lives, and I am glad that people have this outlet to express themselves in many ways! Overall, for myself, I found that learning through videos with visual and verbal instructions were the best support for myself. Once I started to learn more, the written and chart patterns became easy to understand, but did not necessarily teach me anything new after my first time. With this understanding, as a future teacher and our use of technology – I know more about how I could help support students through the screen, instead of what I previously thought (I thought typing an email would suffice, and maybe it would for some students – but not all). I think I discovered that learning online is much easier than I expected! Perhaps, if I wanted to learn something more obscure and specific, it wouldn’t be as easy, but the amount of sources I found for crochet was insane! I preferred the videos, but there were many other forms of teaching that I didn’t like as much, like written patterns, chart patterns, audio only, visual only. And many different creators sharing these through social media, blogs, websites, or selling them! It seems that learning online has never been easier or more accessible than it is today!
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This week I worked on remaking a sweater I had made in the past. The original pattern of this sweater was from a TikTok (that has since been lost in the algorithm, but is similar to this tutorial by @savannah.stitches)I followed over a year ago, but it did not fit me. I made my sweater much too large, it fit my older brother pretty well but it wasn’t his style (LOL)! I wasn’t sure how to fix this sweater, especially because the yarn is not that soft, so I probably would not wear it very often. So, I searched online through YouTube and TikTok and even Google of what to do with my yarn now. I found MANY things I was inspired by, which is good because I have SO MUCH yarn! I specifically liked this book cover by Mahum, however, I wanted mine to look different, it was good for the inspiration! I tried to track my progress very heavily with this project, instead of just doing the beginning and end looks, so I took a lot of pictures and time lapsed the work I was doing! To do this I used iMovie again (first used in my previous post, 'Directing the Classroom') and a video speeder app called “Speed Editor.” I liked this app, but there were a lot of ads and the videos could only be sped up to 2x speed without paying, so I had to put my videos through the editor many times to get them fast enough. Here is my short video of my work! For this week of learning, I wanted to reflect back on my goals from the beginning of this project. Looking back, I wanted to learn about the crochet language and how to read patterns when there is not tutorial provided. Although I am still working on understanding patterns, I thought it would be a fun to try and make my own pattern for something! A couple of weeks ago, my sister asked me to make her a toque with bunny ears attached, in honour of her best friend who passed away two years ago. I couldn’t find a pattern for something I liked and felt fit what my sister wanted, so I knew I would have to make it up as I go, so this is my pattern I made! For this pattern, I saw two different styles of reading crochet so I wanted to try both. Both come with some base knowledge that I did not include in the images, but I learned online. This resource is great for learning the shorthand for stitches in crochet, and this resource is very helpful for learning the stitch chart style I did for the bunny ears sections! I also wanted to note that I did use a smaller hook than what the yarn called for, to ensure there were less gaps in the toque and it would be warm!
This week I learned a new perspective for making art with crochet. I continued to work on my flower bouquet a bit this week, but I struggled to commit to these crafts as I was worried it wouldn’t pay off in the long run. I kept thinking “if someone just pulls this string, the whole piece will fall apart!”, which kept me unmotivated and uninspired by these thoughts. Until I realized (!!! Big moment for me here!!!) that art is allowed to be fragile! In fact, most art is fragile! I realized this when I was read the quote “Most art is fragile, but some should be placed and never moved” by Donald Judd and I was reminded that people are paid to revarnish famous paintings, or how statues get chipped but are still considered incredible works of art history! I kept holding myself back with these flowers because a lot of it is loose, random and not tied together at every point, making it breakable if you gave it a bit too much love. Or even that these pieces wouldn’t sit the same at all times and would curl, twist, stretch and shrink really bothered me because I felt like my hard work wasn’t showing through this project! Realizing that art can be fragile and that these pieces don’t need to be bullet proof has really changed my perspective on what I can or should make! I love the look of these flowers, but hated how delicate they were, but now I love the look AND how delicate and fragile they are – like real flowers! Granted these flowers aren’t weak or bad, they’re just a little less structured than a blanket or a toque! I worked on a sunflower mainly this week! The loops for the seeds on the sunflower are delicate and could come out if they were pulled a little too hard, but I think it looks amazing! It was very worth the work, and this realization ahs really opened up my perspective on crochet! This week I worked with Notability some more to plan some more squares. I also used YouTube to keep me focussed, but not to teach me new things about Crochet. I used the Pomodoro method to focus, with 25 minutes of work and 5 minutes of break – and I found it very helpful! This week, for something new and different I started making some crochet flowers! I really enjoyed making pretty things, and seeing results quickly rather than working for long periods of time. To learn different flowers patterns, I used MoaraCrochet. This site allowed me to look through many different options of what I wanted to create, and gave a combination of images and written instructions, which made everything very clear. The website is very well organized as I can see the end result, and what flower it is before I even dive into the page with the pattern – so I can see if I really wanted to add that one to my bouquet! I loved this website, and will definitely be coming back to it! I worked on three different plants – lavender, string of pearls and a combination flower to really test my skills! I loved how simple and beginner-friendly these patterns are, and they come together quick, which is very encouraging! I loved the lavender I made and I plan on making more, but I want to make a fuller bouquet and I am not sure what will go well with lavender! I will have to look into it more, so I can make sure I like what I make for a long time! I recently deleted TikTok as it became too distracting for me, however I do remember seeing crochet flowers on there so I might have to sneak a peek on that app! This week I worked on the borders of my squares for my baby blanket. I feel less productive this week because school has gotten in the way and I honestly have not made much progress. Other than that, I started to plan my details for my animals on this blanket. I did this on Notability. I plan to use many different stitches and methods to crate different looks and textures within the animals features. For example, the lions mane is based off this flower petal idea from Bella Coco on YouTube. And some of the shapes I make will be based on or inspired by this tutorial by Annemarie Benthem. Overall, this week has very little progress to report, and I am sad to admit that. Next week there will be much much more to say about my journey hopefully! Over the break, I made a lot of progress on my baby blanket project. This week I focussed more on online tools to keep me motivated rather than learning new things, partly because I wanted to continue working on my blanket instead of doing something new and partly because I needed some external motivation. For motivation, social media really helped me. Seeing other people being able to create things and have fun with things they create was really inspirational. Instagram, TikTok and Facebook were my main sources for this. All around these apps have a lot of good creators on them to help motivate people getting into the crafts. Some creators/pages I found most inspiring were CindysCrochet on TikTok, @free_crochet_patterns on Instagram and -The Canadian Crocheters- group on Facebook. These all helped keep me motivated in one way or another and made me excited to crochet every day! This week I did a lot of crochet work! I completed the base of all of my squares for my baby blanket and completed the pig square features. I also completed the other baby blanket I was working on in the previous post, made and stitched together a pillow, made this leafy headphone accessory and made a small whale plushie on my own! This week was very productive for me and I did not feel drained of crochet at any point. I also think these creators inspired me to do more with my crochet hook than I was doing previously, as I had more time. This made me more excited to get back to my projects instead of getting tired of them! This week for my learning project, I tried to document my progress using iMovie. iMovie is an app for creating trailers or videos and do some basic editing to them. The app has a lot more option on the MacBook version, but I used the iPhone version and found it moderately straight forward. I did not use a tutorial for this project as I found most things on my own. This app has many basic features like photos, videos, voice overs, music, and text. Although I felt like I could do everything pretty easily, I also found out that I do not know how to make an interesting video. I feel like my video is quite boring in a viewers’ perspective, so I could work on that if I was looking to make a more entertaining video. When opening the app you are shown this screen to the right. It gives options for starting a new project, including a ‘Magic Movie’ which would make the video for you for the most part. I did try this magic movie, but it made a horrible video so I scratched the entire thing. Below that there is ‘Storyboard’, which would only give me an error message – so not very helpful. At the bottom there is ‘Movie’, which is what I used to create my movie. This section was very clear to me, allowing me to add things wherever I wanted or delete parts of clips I did not like. When working on the movie you are able to see the movie in the upper half, and the storyboard on the lower half which is very helpful to me. You can play the movie in its entirety or only certain parts of the movie using the play button and scrolling to the section you’d like, which really allows you to focus on certain parts. You can also select certain parts of the storyboard and they will become outlined in yellow to indicate which part you are working on. Doing this will give you many many options of things to do to the clips. The one I found most helpful was the ’Split’ button. ‘Split’ allows you to take one section of video and split it into two, so you may have multiple effects on the same clip at different parts. You can also drag the ends of the clips in to delete certain parts in the beginning or end, by shortening the clip on the storyboard. The ’+’ button on the left side allows you to add more media into the video. This button covers most of what is needed to make a video – the visual. I found this part pretty straight forward. Sometimes the media I added would go to random spots, but it is easy to fix. To fix this, you just have the select the clip you want to move and drag it to the part you want it to be at in the storyboard. In the classroom, I think video is a very helpful tool to increase accessibility of the lessons and class. However, I am not sure that iMovie is the best as it is only available on Apple products and does not have any special or unique features to it. Mine also did not give me a tutorial option, so it may be difficult for students to pick up this form of creation. However, I can see videos substituting for in-class or simultaneous lessons, with video lessons or lectures made by the teacher for students to do on their own time, in their own space. I also think we can reach the augmentation of lessons with the editing process that comes with video making. This allows the teacher to fix mistakes, make things more concise and review lectures before students see them, as it is easy to forget something in a lecture on a busy day. For modification, I think videos and video editing reaches a new level in the way that we can easily work and present together, including people with long distance gaps. This would allow for people to collaborate on projects from their own home, instead of travelling or limiting the perspectives in lectures. For redefinition, I think video always redefines education in the way that it is consumed. TEDTalks for example, reach hundreds of thousands of people instead of just the three hundred people who are in the room with the presenter – something that is even hard to picture for me. I enjoy video making, but I also find it hard to keep up with. It is much easier for me personally to sit down and write about my ups and downs in this learning journey, instead of filming it in the moment of it happening. It also put a lot more pressure on me to take photos of me while I was crocheting, which is very hard to do. I am sure videos are the favourite of some people, but they are not mine. Here is my video to show how bad I am at making them! This week I looked into reading patterns online, instead of the video help I usually use. I was looking for something cute to make for valentines day, but this quickly become very hard for me. I tried to use this pattern for a heart pillow, and got lost over and over. This picture shows my most successful attempt, and even still there is a giant hole at the top and I could not replicate this for the other side of the heart. I decided that 3D crochet work was not something I am ready to do based off reading right now. Then I switched to this pattern of a flat heart, which was much more successful. I was able to make this heart many times, fairly quickly. The online confusion with this pattern was the vocabulary. I am used to the term ‘triple crochet,’ but this form uses the term ‘treble crochet’! This is confusing because it’s also called the ‘double treble crochet’ in the UK. Other than that though, this project went pretty smoothly, and I was able to follow the instructions. I am definitely getting closer to being able to understand patterns in the full crochet terminology. I wasn’t totally sure what I was going to do with all these hearts, but I was inspired by this chicken pillow shared by @fiberfairy on TikTok. I think it would be very similar to the animal blanket, and simple to make with hearts instead of little chickens. More than that, I was able to continue work on my animal blanket and start putting some circles into squares for the background! This part of the pattern has the most diversity in stitches, as there are five different types in the first round of work. This features the single crochet, half-double crochet, double crochet, treble/triple/double treble crochet and chaining. I know a lot more stitches than I did when I started this project, and I am more understanding of how to build projects and make specific aspects of shapes – like corners or gaps in the patterns. Next week, I would like to finish this heart pillow before Valentines day, and get more of the circles done for the baby blanket. My sister also asked me to make her a hat, with no given pattern so maybe I will try that after these two projects! This week for my learning project, I mainly focussed on starting my project. I was planning on focussing on learning how to read patterns, but this video is beneficial to both goals. The video by 365DayofDana shows me what to do in a clear video, but also has the pattern listed at the top of the video. I watched the video one time and have not been back to watching it. I wrote down the patterns listed on the screen, and when I forget what to do, I am now able to look at the note and remember what it means I like this video specifically because it is very clear. I find that a lot of crochet projects on YouTube or Tiktok are extremely quick, without explaining anything to the audience and often not showing the work they are doing, which is extremely unhelpful. I also like that she explains the process while she is doing it, it not JUST the visual aspect. She also explains some things multiple times, which is very uncommon in the videos I have seen. Plus, she gives me the tools to do it on my own. She shows how to counts the stitches properly, during and after the steps are done so I am able to look at my own work and be sure that I didn’t miss anything! Overall, I liked the video style but I am also aware that not all videos are as educational as this one has been. This week I was able to make 9 circles for the blanket, after messing up multiple times in the beginning, due to my own miscalculations on sizing (not related to the video). Next week I will continue working on the blanket and try some new online sources! |
AuthorMy name is Paige Belcourt and I am currently a student a the University of Regina. I am working towards a degree in Secondary Mathematics Education with a minor in French, as well as a certificate in inclusive Education. Archives
April 2024
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