Learning all the time

The Yarn Harlot moved me to tears this morning when I read her blog. She mentions an expression “when an elder dies, a library burns to the ground”. I thought of my Dad, my Father in Law, and all the other wise ones that have passed before us. All the collective knowledge that is lost forever. And I thought of all the things I know and am learning that will be gone when I’m gone. I need to get to my Aunt Ann’s and start recording her knowledge about her life, and her recipes. Fortunately my brother was smart and he videotaped my dad talking about his life right before he became really ill. I urge everyone to get the life stories of their loved ones before it’s too late. And to be willing to pass on their own knowledge and life story to others.

I’m glad I’ve started teaching knitting at Double Ewe. And that I’m passing on my love of all things crafty to my daughters. My daughter Amy is a fearless knitter. My daughter Anita is loves to create art. And I’ve taught my son John to knit. A few days ago he said that he should pick up his knitting needles again, I’ll have to encourage that! My nephew has expressed a desire to learn to knit too. Maybe a “learning to knit” get together is in order

I love to take classes whenever I can. I started my china painting classes again this week with one of the china painting elders in this city. She’s over 80 years old and I hope to learn as much as I can from her while I can. We talked yesterday about how long it’s been that I’ve been painting china. Maybe 5 or 6 years. And I have so much more to learn.

I took a class a few weeks ago in punch needle embroidery and can see a lot of potential for being creative with it. Funnily the classmates and the teacher were all about prepackaged kits and couldn’t see my enthusiasm for making my own up. I guess all those art classes I’ve taken have made me fearless about drawing up my own design. I need to finish the kit that I started in class first though!

I guess that I just love to learn new things and I'm not satisfied until I've got whatever it is figured out. I even figured out how to put the video in my last post up all by myself! Who knows what's next.