I'll Never Stop Learning!

Pen and Ink Painting (stippling) of my grand-daughter Jeva Lee sleeping on her Daddy's shoulder.



Pen And Ink Painting (stippling) Of My oldest grandson John-John.


Pen and Ink self-portrait, done quite a few years ago.




My daughter and her then youngest son, Jules Ethan. (Pen and ink stippling, again)



I miss teaching.

I miss sharing what I know and what I have learned. I miss working with people of all ages, and all the fun we had making things.

After all my children grew up, my husband and I found ourselves moving all over the country. He is/was a computer programer who worked under contract which meant we moved every six to nine months for a new contract. If you can imagine, that can be a very lonely life. You never really live anywhere long enough to make friends of any kind.

I don't remember exactly how it happened but when we moved into an apartment in Edina, Minnesota, I offered my services as an arts and crafts teacher to the manager of the complex. She jumped at the chance, and I soon found myself planning and writing up lesson plans, and gathering materials for my classes.

I wanted to keep my classes fairly simply, with supplies that most people could easily find around their homes. Two of my favorite classes were making books and origami. We also worked with polymer clay, and learned scrap booking. We learned to make Shrinky Dinks, and stickers to decorate our homemade scrapbooks. One of my biggest kicks out of teaching these classes was that my students usually ranged from four years old to 80 + Years. I've always felt that when you stop learned, you start truly growing old.

I think my most popular classes from that time were the origami and eraser clay lessons.

I was sad to leave Edina, but that wasn't the end of my teaching classes. When we found ourselves living in Shaumburg, Illinois, I quickly got caught up in teaching beginning crochet classes to adults, baking and cooking classes (homemade pizza crust and marinara sauce from scratch, and again, arts and crafts classes to kids. I found both the kids and the adults were fascinated by my watercolor painted classes. One of my highest compliments was hearing an adult say, "I did that? I DID that, all by myself!"

I haven't done any teaching for a couple of years now, and I miss it so much. I wonder what happened to all my former students. Have they kept on trying and experimenting what they learned?

Way back in my thirties, my dream was to take classes to become an art teacher with an official degree. Now with all my health problems, and our financial difficulties, I've had to watch that dream die, and it has been hard.

SO now I have a question for you. Is there anything that you have always wanted to learn to do? I had an online friend who always wanted to learn to do polymer clay, all the techniques and tricks, but she lived clear across the country from me. We managed through email and email photo attachments to teach and learn from each other.

Is there anyone out there willing and wanting to do something similar with me? Leave me a comment and I'll get back to you by email. Please note, I don't know how to do everything artistic, but I may be able to direct you to a website that may help you.

Happy crocheting and happy crafting!

p.s. Over the next few days, I'll be posting some of my work, both from my classes and things I've taught myself. Consider this a warning...