Is This The End of My Beading Journey?- Learning Project Wrap Up Post

Honestly, it feels a bit sureal to say that the learning project is finally coming to the end! When I first started this project, I felt like this semester would be so long and that I had so much time to work on this and improve. Now looking back, the end of the semester came so quickly and although I did improve, I can recognize I still have lots that I could learn.

When I started my learning project, I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted to choose to learn. I figured that it needed to be something that wouldn’t take up a lot of time (sorry Katia, I am so busy and tired) and I wanted it to be something that is relevant to my life. I work at a school that has a population of about 99% Indigenous students, so I decided that I would learn beading.

Now I had beaded once before starting this project. It was not the most successful beading experience because I had mostly taught myself based off of what I had seen others do so it was without any formal teaching. So it ended up being a bit of a mess, but at least I tried. But since many of my students beaded or wanted to learn, I figured that this would be a good skill to learn that would be applicable to my own life and job. So this gave me some motivation to do the work.

 

 

When I wrote my first blog post about the learning project, I said that I wanted to learn how to bead a poppy for remembrance day, and I wanted to learn how to teach students so that I could make pride flags with my students in GSA. I felt that these goals were pretty fair for only having a couple of months to work on this project, but honestly looking back, I think that I could have aimed a bit higher. But I think that part of the reason for this is that I ended up really enjoying beading, so I did more beading than I thought that I would.

In my Second week, when I actually started the project, I wrote about how I used a kit from Skills Canada Saskatchewan that we were given a box of for our school. These kits ended up being really good for the basic beading supplies that I needed to use for this project. They had a collection of basic bead colours, thick felt to bead on, needles, thread and a few other small items. This is very basic beading supplies, but for the first few weeks when my skill level was still very low, it ended up being a great resource for me. The video that Skills Canada put out to teach beading also is the video source that I felt I learned the most about because it was the first time that I was learning and I got the greatest amount of information.

My first attempt of beading during this project actually was good practice. I was short on time due to work, but I found that I was able to practice a bit of beading in a circle and also a straight line which was a good skill to learn. Looking back, I probably needed a bit more time practicing at this stage before I moved onto starting projects.

But hindsight is 20/20 and now I know for next time! One tip I learned from a friend after I finished this project is to use pony beads to practice and now I would recommend starting with those since they are larger and easier to work with!

By the third week of this project, I felt overwhelmed and short on time. I was feeling like there wasn’t enough time to do this project while working full time and the start of the school year was really weighing on me. I didn’t say that in my post of course. But instead, I decided that since I didn’t feel I had time to actually bead and work on a physical project, that I could learn a bit more about the history of beading. I was able to learn more about the art which helped me to appreciate it even more.

The fourth week I was back and feeling a bit better! This was our week of the joint blog post and learning about a few technology resources. I decided to learn about CapCut and made a video. I spent time helping my coworker with her class and the beading they were working on, so I felt more confident in helping them. This helped a lot with the second goal of being able to teach beading. CapCut ended up being a great video editing software for phone videos and although I haven’t used it for more academic work, I have made some cute TikToks with my husband and friends.

Warning super cute little tiktok video incoming…

 

Week 5 I felt that it was finally time to start the poppy project. Now this wasn’t because I was feeling overly confident in my abilities (I still barely knew what I was doing) but it was moreso because it was already the end of October and if I wanted to have a poppy by Remembrance Day, I needed to start it soon.

I started the poppy by tracing onto a piece of paper and then tracing the piece of paper onto the felt. I quickly learned this method sucks and that I should just put the felt to a screen to trace directly on the felt. But we live and we learn. I used this video to learn how to do the poppy process and it ended up being a great resource that I would highly recommend.

I was able to start the poppy this week and as nervous as I was about starting it and accidentally messing it up, I was feeling fairly confident. Which was a bit shortlived, but my students were only bullying me about how bad it was a little bit.

This is also the week where I realized that because of the teaching job that I have, I could work on my beading while they worked and I helped them, which made the biggest difference in having time. The other great thing about doing it when they worked is that I could sit with them and help as needed without breathing down their throats about their work because I had something to do with my hands to keep me busy, which was the best thing so far!

After my little confidence boost week 5, I was ready for week 6 and was excited to finish the poppy. I was also racing against time a bit becuase it was getting very close to Remembrance Day. So the pressure to finish this project was intense. I was able to successfully finish the poppy this week. I also made two other poppies after I finished the first one. The reason for this is that I realized that I made some mistakes on the first one, so I wanted to correct that in my next one. So I made a second. But then once number 2 was done, my best friend/coworker was bugging me about making her one, so I made a third.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Honestly this is where I realized that I wasn’t quite totally doing this project 1000% correctly because I was focusing more on the actual beading, rather than the sources that I was supposed to be reviewing. I got a bit carried away- whoops!

This is also when I realized that it might be time to invest in some better supplies. So I bought some new beads in a multicolour pack, beading tread, a pack of beading needles, and some thinner felt. I think that the reason that I enjoyed it more after this point is due to the quality of the supplies. I didn’t think they were necessary, but truly made a big difference.

Week 7 is where I started to feel like I was getting a lot better at my beading and even my students and coworkers were noticing and saying praises. This is where I decided to try some other sources and I checked out Reddit! Now as much as I enjoy using Reddit for my own social media and information, Reddit did not end up being a great learning resource. But I will say that it is great for problem solving and finding information to other sites. So I still think using Reddit this week was a success.

I was able to make another project this week as well. This is when I started to enjoy beading a lot and I was doing the beading more for my own enjoyment and creations, than it was for my project! I decided I was going to make some ornaments for my in laws, so I started by making the BC Lions logo for my father in law. Now as a diehard Saskatchewan Roughriders fan, this did hurt me a bit, but I got through and was pleasently surprised with how it turned out! (Please don’t bully me too hard for the fact that he looks a little derpy. I forgot his teeth lol)

Now when I was on Reddit looking for suggestions, thats where I heard people talking about using excel and similar programs to design their beading projects. So for Week 8, I decided to try Google Sheets to design a project. I used it to design a little square design. Now I think that this could be useful for loom beading, such as in this video, but due to the fact that the beads that I have were not uniform in size, it wouldn’t be easy for me to do and I didn’t think that this design would be what is best for me.

Week 9 I decided to try AI (I was ahead of Katia in the blogging about AI this week) so I asked ChatGPT to teach me to bead. Using AI for something this hands on honestly was not great because it didn’t have images or a video to follow along with. I think that AI is so useful for other things, but unfortunately, teaching someone to bead, is not it.

The instructions were very detailed though, so I have to give ChatGPT the props on this. It helped me to script what I will say to the students when I am teaching them to bead which was helpful. I just think that it isn’t feasible for this to be your only source when you are learning how to do a skill like beading.

Then we came to week 10, the final regular week of the learning project. Which came shockingly sooner than I thought it would. This week I wanted to practice some of the skills and honestly I needed to catch up on some of my christmas present making because how is it already December??

I spent some time making a present for my mother in law, and one for my friend. Then I made a pride flag and worked to show a student how to do it in the process. This was when I was feeling that my project was a success. I was able to show them how I was doing thebeading, and another student asked if they could have the pride flag for themselves and it made me feel so nice to be able to support my students in this way.

Then I decided to make a project for me, which was the She/Her Bisexual Pride Flag which I made and then attached to my backpack. This was a really emotional one to make because I was putting a lot of myself into that project and I was so happy with how it came out!

So I guess that means that this is the end of my project. Which is kind of crazy to believe that it is over already. A lot of my students and friends have asked if I will continue to bead now that the project is over. I think that I will (I mean I am currently still working on a project or two at the moment) but I am not sure how long term that will be. I often will ditch hobbies for a while becuase I get distracted with another hobby so I am not sure if this is something I will keep doing long term, but seeing as how much I enjoy it, I think I will at least try to.

When I think back to the different ways to learn online this semester, the two methods that I think are really the best for learning this skill, it would be first and foremost, Youtube, and the second source would be using blogs. Which I didn’t think that I would say, but reading about how other people are working on their projects and seeing them work step by step with instructions are helpful. There are some really great sources of information online and honestly I probably only skimmed the surface for beading resources. I think that this will be something that I continue to explore so that I can continue to learn techniques and better my skills.

I am thankful for this experince overall because it gave me the chance to try something that I wouldn’t have been able to dedicate the time to otherwise. Seeing as the project was coming to a close, I decided that I wanted to work on a project that was just for me to be able to reflect on my own skill development and tie to some of the other things I really enjoy. So thus came my backpack patch. If you know anything about me, I am a big Twilight fan (I know that it is campy, but I love it) and there is some really great phrases in the series. One quote that is often talked about in groups talking about Twilight is:

This is the skin of a killer (Bella) – Edward

Now this quote is talked about so much because honestly, it is a really silly line and people think it is a bit cringe. But obviously writing it out every time is a bit much, so people decided to create an acronym- TITSOAK. Now this looks like it is naughty, but it isn’t. So since I decided that this project was just for me and my own enjoyment, I decided to make a TITSOAK backpack patch. I tried some new techniques with mixing beads and also tried to do a gradient, but I think that honestly I am proud of how it turned out. I have enjoyed getting to explain what this is to people who see it and it makes me happy every time I see it on my bag.

To review where we started, this was where I was at the start of my project, vs the end.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am proud of myself.

Thanks for the learning opportunity and remember that you can always learn a new skill and that the internet is a great place to learn new things! Best wishes and have a great holiday season.

-Briana