I recently took a class at Artistic Artifacts given by Catherine Redford on making Dorset buttons using a ring of some type and thread. [For more information on them, Catherine suggested books by Gina Barrett and Pat Olski.] I like to bring some sort of small handcraft when I travel, and making buttons fits that wonderfully. This past week I traveled to a conference for work, so I brought lots of supplies to make buttons. My plan was to make buttons while sitting at the airport, sitting on the plane, and relaxing at the hotel at night.
The conference was three full days, and I would guess I am not the only person who sometimes has problems focusing on presentation after presentation all day long, no matter how good the presentations are. [The conference I went to was excellent, and the presentations were good and thought provoking, and I learned a lot.] The night before the first day of the conference, I decided to put some supplies for making buttons in the bag I was bringing to the conference as well as my normal conference supplies like my notebook. By the afternoon of the first day, I was getting tired, and I got out my supplies to unobtrusively make a button while listening. It actually worked out well as I focused more on the presentation while keeping my hands busy making a button. I feel like it helped me alleviate the tiredness and made me more attentive. I was slightly embarrassed that I was doing this and didn’t know if others would think it was unprofessional, so I tried to work very much in my lap, so few could see what I was doing. I was sitting towards the back, so few could see me anyway. Then during the question period of one of the presentations, I was looking at people in the audience instead of the speaker, and I realized that there was a woman several rows up who was knitting. I felt less embarrassed making buttons.
The next two days during the conference, I brought my button making supplies and made buttons while listening and taking lots of notes. Several people asked what I was doing, but none criticized me. In fact, one woman told me that at least four people were knitting while attending. I told one person who asked me that instead of just fidgeting or letting my attention wan, I was productively fidgeting. I kept my attention on the presentations and I was able to be productive while I listened. The pages of notes I took are evidence of how much I learned should anyone not believe you can craft while learning at the same time.
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