Over the past couple years I have become very interested in embroidery through one of my friends I used to volunteer with. Since then, I have bought my own supplies (embroidery floss, sewing needles, fabric, and a stitching hoop) and started teaching myself how to embroider. However, I haven’t really learned a lot of different stitches or a proper technique on how to embroider. I’ve mostly have just dived into it and started embroidering different designs. While I believe that jumping into a project without knowing a lot of information on how to do it definitely teaches you how to learn, I also think it is important to grow a base knowledge and be well prepared by using what you learned before hand. It is a bit different from when I started embroidery because it was an outside of school project, was purely recreational, and had no deadline. Therefore, I had all the time I needed to learn the skills required. Now that I am becoming a teacher, I believe it is important to learn how to prepare for a project and be well organized before starting a project because I will need to be doing this as a teacher for lesson planning and in class work. It is important to have prior knowledge and plan what you will be teaching because if you make it up on the spot you will run out of time and from my own experiences as a student – the students can always tell when a teacher is ill-prepared. 

 

I’ve been brainstorming some ideas on what I want to do with embroidery for my free inquiry project. I was thinking about coming up with a design to embroider a backpack, and to learn and practice different stitches that I can use on the backpack. Not only would I be doing this, but I would also help teach another student in the class how to embroider. My first step in this inquiry is coming up with a design for my backpack and figuring out what stitches I will be required to use and need to learn. By doing this inquiry, I will be able to practice my self learning and teaching, which will come in use for when I become a teacher.