Making Mistakes and Starting Over
There's nothing wrong with making and admitting mistakes. It's how we humans learn!
These days, I spend a large portion of my time weaving. (If you've followed this newsletter for very long, you'll realize I am not writing much! But that's for a future post.) I've been weaving for about five years now and have produced a number of pieces of which I'm really proud. But not today.
I just shared a “failed” project with friends on Facebook. “Carnage#2” is what I called a photo of the recently-begun and now almost-destroyed weaving of what was to be a very large sunflower. I decided to abandon it because I realized I was fighting the tall, narrow warp with an uncharacteristic (to me) simplistic design and that I wasn't going to win. I realized it wasn’t just me and my developing weaving skills. In fact, a few months ago I'd ripped another developing project off that same warp for similar reasons. A more experienced weaver likely wouldn't have attempted that combination of yarn, warp size/shape, and design in the first place. But it took me two tries to learn that lesson. I'll be re-warping the loom into a horizontal shape for a seascape idea I've had in my head for awhile.
My Facebook friends have been wonderfully supportive of my weaving adventures. However, I was feeling a bit vulnerable sharing this episode. But, as some of them reminded me, making mistakes, and starting over is how we learn. And I've been writing about that for almost half a century!
For instance, in a 2005 article for Life Learning Magazine, I wrote this: “The best learning – perhaps the only real learning – is that which results from personal interest and investigation, from following our own passion.” That was about children's learning, but it also applies to us at any age.
Along with curiosity, which leads to ownership of the process, goes time and space for muddling about and experimenting. And, at this point in my life, I have both time and space for pursuing my passion. As I've said and written many times, learning thrives when there is time and opportunity to explore in a safe, supportive environment, to investigate our theories, ask and answer our own questions, test out our ideas and methods. That is exactly the process I use when weaving.
Since I began to share some of my work-in-progress on social media, people occasionally have asked me where I learned to weave and what courses I've taken. I'm a do-it-yourselfer. I'm self-taught – or, more accurately, am self-learning because the process will never end. When I first began to weave, I read a few books and watched a few videos about warping and basic techniques, and I belong to a few weaving groups for support and inspiration. But I prefer to develop my skills and creative vision by experimenting with real-life projects.
I also try to nurture my creativity on an ongoing basis, which is something I think parents can and should do for their children. Mine didn't do that; being brave enough to tackle something new, or to admit a project wasn't going to work and start over didn't come easily to me as a young adult. That was one motivation for the way I supported our unschooling daughters in their creative projects. They explored, questioned, problem solved, experimented, focused and shifted focus, made messes, took risks without fear of ridicule, made mistakes and tried again. They applied what they learned by moving around, talking, experimenting some more, thinking, jumping up and down...and sometimes appearing not to be doing anything at all. Most children will do that if given the freedom.
I wrote about that process over 20 years ago and it occurred to me today that I am now, finally, following the same risk-taking path on my weaving journey. Well, except maybe for jumping up and down...and perhaps I should try that too!
P.S. If you're interested, there are hundreds of free (and ad-free) articles about learning on the Life Learning Magazine website.