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2023-09-16
My needlework exercises preparing to assemble my first patchwork project have given me the sense that I have a set of habits learned from portable work, mostly English paper pieced cloth balls or palm sized embroidery and appliqué on felt.
I diverge from the printed pattern advice in these ways:
Basting or safety pins over glue or washable pens for placing.
Hand sewing over machine because who uses a machine on a bus or airplane?
The exception in the latest project was machine joining strips for cutting into pieced accent borders, where the speed and ease of long lines of straight stitch justify a machine session.
Today's reflection on preferred needlework tools and habits gave me an 'aha' about familiar tools and habits in my day job field -- computer software -- as acculturations which depend on your learning path and history: "radically contingent" to the extent that close observation and working together is necessary to convey the thinking and decision processes around tools and habits.
This is my "I guess everything is information systems dynamics, or is it cultural anthropology" face.
Transcribed from a Mastodon post on Hachyderm.io.