This CAS experience includes creating a range of designs on a white piece of cloth and sewing/stitching it using different colours of thread. I took this as my experience because cloth embroidery is completely new to me, for a person who does not even know how to stitch a button on her uniform creating a complete design with details has to be immensely gruelling. I will start off with the basics meaning that I will first learn the various types of stitches such as backstitch, chain stitch, running stitch etc. I will commence with stitching big figures just so I could have more space to stitch and to free my hand, then I will move onto the smaller parts with detailing which require skill, concentration and patience.
LO1: Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth
After the start of the experience I realised that with the use of technology meaning that while watching youtube videos I could easily do the stitching in no time. I feel that I am a quick learner and having an artistic background from the MYP arts helped me do a great job. I was very much concentrated on the job and I was able to sit for continuous long hours with minimal distractions and breaks. As every coin has two sides I had several setbacks too. In the start I was not able to pass the thread through the needle, later I could not get the proper stitch over the marking I made on the cloth and these small things made me impatient. I would just as easily get frustrated and later procrastinate on the task. As and when I started to brush up on my skills and became comfortable with the needle I could smoothly finish the design in one go.
LO2: Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process
As I formerly mentioned this skill was a challenge in itself because I didn’t even know the basics. There were a few steps in the process that were harder than others like getting a certain type of stitch on a certain marking on the cloth. I would end up disarranging the dots or lines which would frustrate me at times and I would start the process all over again. To overcome this challenge I simply practised types of stitches on a single straight line before moving onto flowers and butterflies. I practised the basics over and over again until I felt that I could move on to creating a design of my own. Now that I have this skill I could try making appealing designs on clothes that I wear such as traditional Kurtis or purses. I have been wanting to do this for a long time as being an MYP art student I explored different mediums of paints and I worked a lot with the brushes and I always wanted to learn how to deal with needles and create designs.
LO4: Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences
This experience demanded loads of time and patience to get every stitch in the right place. With sufficient time and commitment, I could lift myself to the uppermost level. The beginning of this experience was tiring and exhausting and took most of my time and energy. But after putting loads of effort and after dedicating myself to the task moving onto the final level was very easy and I could rapidly create designs. This CAS experience made me realise how important it is to stick to a task until the very end to get the desired results. As a person, I am very indecisive and for me, it was necessary to take on such a task so I could be persistent.
The learner profile attributes were inquirer and open-minded. Inquirer because I was curious and I asked a lot of questions to my mother and the internet for every step I was doing in the experience. Also open-minded because I did seek opinions from other people like my family and I accepted all the suggestions they made to me and I tried my best to work according to my desired outcome.
To sum up , I feel this was the hardest yet the best CAS experience I have had so far because the experience was a challenge in itself and now that I took it as my activity for CAS I feel I have learnt a lot of new skills which shouldn’t have come to me without hard work and determination.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nTLfMuZwCwih0ixVkr2mdYxLNQaS4Q2hx6wWA62XWd0/edit