I spent this morning going through the rough draft of the book, marking places where more material is needed, Â brainstorming new topics, and putting together a list of examples drawn from my personal creative journey. Â One of the things I did was put together a list of the various crafts I’ve done over the years, with at least some degree of seriousness. Â (I did not include things that are not crafts, like gardening or cycling.) Â It’s rather embarrassingly long:
- Weaving
- Dyeing
- Precision color matching
- Constructing sample book
- Knitted blank design (involves machine knitting)
- Dyeing yarns
- Dyeing fabric
- Cross-dyeing experiments (with handwoven fabric!)
- Garment design and construction
- Sewing
- Flat pattern drafting
- Learning to use Illustrator for flat pattern drafting
- Draping patterns
- Writing
- Design (not a craft but might as well be)
- Knitting
- Spinning
- Origami
- Surface design
- Stamping
- Silkscreening
- Marbling
- Drawing/painting
- Chinese knotwork
- Pysanky/Celtic knotwork eggs
- Embroidery/stitching
The top five are the ones I’ve been working on extensively within the past five years; the remainder are  older crafts, or crafts that I’ve only done a few projects in.  (I’m not counting things where I did one project and quit.)
I’ve started writing the section on creating cross-disciplinary projects. Â Nothing yet that’s worth quoting, mostly just brainstorming topics to discuss. Â I do have this small gem (from a different section) to offer you, though:
Learning vs. performance is fundamentally about risk. The more unfamiliar the terrain, the more likely you are to make mistakes, and the more likely you are to learn something new. Sticking to familiar terrain carries a different risk: the risk of learning nothing, of staying comfortably in a rut. On every project, you can set the risk dial wherever you want. Just remember: the more risks you take, the more unfamiliar territory you enter – the more you will learn.
Likely, you have more than one book to write.
Your”small” gem is worth remembering. Thanks for putting it into print for us.
Your gem ties into the work of Carol Dweck, which I just started reading about last night. She investigates the effect of ‘mindset’ on learning in a variety of situations. When a person perceives ability to be a fixed attribute, the goal they pursue is others’ positive regard of their current skill level. This leads to low risk-taking (which might disclose low skill level), low effort (effort is a symbol of low skill), and low learning. When ability is perceived to be changeable, the goal is learning. Effort is then an indication of improvement and risk-taking in the service of learning is favored. The result is a higher eventual skill level.
Since most crafters are hobbyists and are working for sheer enjoyment, the possible goals may be a little different. Or not. I’m interested in your thoughts.