The Building Blocks of Learning

    Learn all about block theory from Madelyn whenever
you want at your own pace with her new video.      Block theory opens up a whole new world of weaving.

By now, everyone has some awareness of the slow movement. We have slow food, slow cloth, slow fashion, and so on. Slow this and that is often brought to our attention via the rapid speed of the internet. It’s enough to make this slow weaver feel a bit overwhelmed by the paradox. When I worked in technology, I once overheard managers describe my learning style as “slow and thorough” which leads me into how technology is improving the weaving skills of this slow learner.

Have you ever taken a weaving workshop and a couple of hours into the class you couldn’t wait for, you begin to experience a bit of overload and fatigue? Have you ever wondered about a weaving concept or definition and you perk up when you hear it explained perfectly, but then it escapes because you are fed another tidbit that knocks the previous bite (or should that be byte?) out of your head? You don’t want to interrupt the class and instead think to yourself, “I wish I could rewind and save what I just heard.” Well now you can!

I love live classes and have no intention of giving them up. However, Madelyn van der Hoogt has a new video, Block Weaves: Designing and Weaving with Blocks, and I have been enjoying my own one-on-one time with her. When she teaches a concept that I don’t grasp, I am able to repeat it as often as it takes for me to comprehend the idea thoroughly. I love that I can stop the world until I am ready to move on. The Luddite in me likes the associated handbook that I printed out; it allows me to follow along with pencil in hand in order to underline block theory in my brain. At the same time, and score one for technology, I’m learning a few tips about my weaving software from Madelyn too.

Technology is making weaving accessible to more people. Not all of us can travel to classes and workshops, but certainly more of us can download a video or purchase a DVD and benefit by being able to repeat all or portions of the class as often as we like. For me, it’s pretty darn cool to be free of having to both understand and remember. I love that the video will remember for me. And for those who don’t share my memory challenges, well, you will be able to accelerate your weaving skills even faster after learning all about blocks with Madelyn!

—Pattie