Make a Sample - A New Learning

 

I am completing a communication assignment for Toastmasters and have to post 8 blogs in a month. Rather than start a new blog I decided to combine two of my interests and use this existing blog page.

Apologies in advance if you are bombarded with posts – just know that it is helping me to complete my assignment and have some felting fun along the way.

Recently I completed Wendy Bailye’s Fifty Shades of Grey course. Wow! What a course. I will be dipping into her online content for a long time to come.

The basis of her course is not to create a finished product but to improve your technique by creating samples – all in black and white.

I have been a serious “sampler” for quite a few years.

Here is a small sample of my samples:

So why sample? :

Firstly, a sample will often save time and valuable materials. Trying out an idea as a sample first can often avoid costly mistakes.

Here is a sample I made of a design for a lampshade. I wasn’t sure if the grey satin would attach – it did but I still felt it was a bit fragile even though it was fulled to 40%.

After making the sample I decided that instead of laying it directly onto the merino lamp base I will make a prefelt with it so the satin is attached to the prefelt which will give it a more secure attachment to the lamp base.

The second reason I sample is to give inspiration. Sometimes, having made a sample the original idea will be abandoned and a new one will develop pushing my creativity just a bit further.

This was the basis for Wendy Bailye’s course. Each sample would foster new ideas for another. And that is exactly what happened!

Previously I had just made samples and then tossed them onto the pile. Occasionally I would refer to them to check out a particular technique I’d used in the past but Wendy showed us how to document our work so it would be a great future reference source.

Part of the documentation also required us to record the main learnings and what we would like to try next. For me, that was one of the most valuable parts of the course, reinforcing what was learned and inspiring the next learning journey. This process really made me look critically at my work to determine what worked, and what didn’t.

When you first start felting, sampling seems like such a waste of valuable time – why not just make the object and learn as you go. But as you progress and refine your technique, sampling is definitely a huge step forward to learning and growing.

Are you a sampler? How does it help and inspire? Or, would you rather learn by creating?