Teaching and Learning

my "determined to learn to weld" face...
Awesome workshop... Scared me EVERY DAY...
and I felt like a superhero by the end.

I'm kind of a class and workshop addict. I like taking them. I like teaching them. I like the sleepy anticipation as the group finds their seats and looks around for who they might want to talk to later.
I like the friends, the moms and daughters, the fathers and sons, the siblings who signed up together.
I like the curiosity, the creativity... I like people who simply want to make something... People who crave the "how".

I like the hand outs, the stack of supplies, the fumblings, and questions.

But my favorite part is the moment that the new skill grabs you. The few minutes of first understanding when the curiosity becomes REAL potential. When the ideas and skills that you came in for, mesh with your ideas and skills. You might not be great at it yet... but it opens up what you can do... and you are somehow bigger than when you got up in the morning.

I love it as a student and I love it even more as a teacher.

I have a young sewing student... She's a natural. Precise, careful, detail oriented and so into the textures and colors of the fabrics. So far she has made PJs, a pillow case and a zippered bag. Every lesson she finishes her project...and the minute it comes together: the zipper zips... the hem goes in... the pj's fit.. She lights up. She can do something new, and it is magic.

What else is there, in this big, bad, world, that could possibly top that?

Some Thoughts On Bravado

 Promises, Promises 2014-Bethany Carlson Mann

 Photo by Bari Lee    Models: Kelsey McNickle and the incomparable L.B. as the ringbearer

bra·va·do (brəˈväˌdō/) noun

a bold manner or a show of boldness intended to impress or intimidate

synonyms:

boldness, swaggering, bluster

I am a big fan of bravado. It is a technique I currently apply as a matter of course. There are things in this life that all the confidence in the world can not prepare you for. 

Loss. Divorce. Death. Trauma. Vulnerability.

Bravado keeps the house clean, gets the bills paid, when the future is uncertain. Bravado picks out the high heels. Says yes to the first "first date" in 23 years. And when that sucks... it says yes to the next "first date" too. Bravado introduces herself. Bravado is optimistic. Pulling up her skirt and climbing the fences. Bravado doesn't intend to be left behind. Bravado says "If we win, we win... and if we lose, it will be a great story."

Bravado is created. It kicks in on minute 27 of a dance party for one that you are throwing  for yourself while your heart is breaking. Created when you hold your nose and jump and survive. It's Pluck and Gumption. It's not a facade, but a foundation.

I have heard the term False Bravado but can there be such a thing as Non False Bravado?

Isn't the nature of bravado a boldness for show? For effect? Isn't that by it's very nature a falsehood?

There are things you can't be certain of. There are things you have to say "Hell Yes"  to that might end in tears. If you say confidence, I say confidence is a russe. You can't have enough proof of your own skill and smarts to dance with every demon with true Confidence. But you can have enough Bravado. For me bravado isn't about impressing others. It's about impressing upon myself that the fear of trying Must Not trump the fear of not trying. Feel the fear. Do it anyway. Is that confidence? Or bravado?

We won't get out of this unscathed. Fact is, we won't get out of this alive. Bravado makes the most of the time we get. So put on your lipstick...and live with bravado.

All my Love, kittens, 
Betty

synonyms:

boldness, swaggering, bluster

Slinking Back In through A Side Entrance

Hi... I'm going to try and shake the dust off this thing and start blogging again. My hiatus was so long I'm not sure if anyone will even notice my slinking back into blogland... But it's time!

I've been going back to school. I picked up some new tricks (fabric printing-see below) and I kinda reinvented/ rediscovered myself. It's been quite a whirlwind off to OZ kind of adventure, and I'm hoping and planning to get chronicled for my own amusement and maybe a few others as well....

This weekend I'm off to LA to The Art of Craft at the French General... I get to see some friends I made last fall. I truly am excited. (And I get to see my Grandma. She is the greatest.)

Anyway... If you are curious, happy to see me, or still out there... Please feel free to say hi!
I need to go looking for my old friends... the ones that haven't played Facebook or Instagram with me. All the better if you wave across the miles. I'd so appreciate it!!

It's been a long time. I hope I can find you.

A little scarf I printed and whipped up in the last couple of days.
Because I still *heart* my handmade clothes.