[Nfb-or] Questions about soeing.

[Tami Kinney]

Kendra,

I am left-handed, yet hopeless at crafts due to being a total geek. 
/grin/ However, I do have a friend who is right-handed and not blind at 
all who is about as artistic and naturallly crafty as they get. She 
learned rug-making from her blind grandmother... She lives out in the 
hinterlands but has learned from childhood how to communicate with a 
blind person about all sorts of visual stuff as if that is perfectly 
natural. Needless to say, I adored every second I spent with her and 
with her daughter, who was as naturally gifted at that sort of thing as 
her mother. /grin/

Would you mind if I forwarded your message to her to ask if she might be 
able to offer some teaching and assistance. Even though she is way the 
heck out there, her skill at verbal description is truly extraordinary. 
/smile/ In fact, I spent one really great evening with her and her 
daughter watching a movie -- they took turns reading subtitles in a few 
of the scenes as if this wer just something they did -- while the two of 
them selected rags and colors and lengths for the rug they were starting 
together for their winter project. Too fun. My friend informed me at one 
point that she learned to do this craft, which she was now teaching her 
daughter in this project, from her grandmother, the one who was blind 
from RP long before my friend was born. "So," my friend added, looking 
up from her length of rag in mock sternness "the bar is pretty high for 
you, young lady!." /lol/ No low expectations there!

Good luck! That sounds like a really fun and potentially rewarding 
business. Love it!

Tami

On 11/03/2011 10:33 AM, Kendra Schaber wrote:
> Hi everyone:
> I am a blind left-handed gardener who is learning how to weave recycled strips of sheets to make rag rugs. I am learning how to make rag rugs to sell in my own small business which once started will be found in the cottige industry. I am a member of a rag rug making gild and my teacher has not worked with a blind person before
. I should point out that I am the only blind person in my gild. Since I 
am a beginner, I am still working out the finer details in weeving the 
strips together on a hand-made loom. I have to soe the strips of 
recycled sheets together in order to keep the rug smooth. I have tried 
to use nots to put the strips together but had to spend three or four 
hours after my last rug was finished to get the nots out in order to 
make it flat so that it can go into the market place. Both my teacher 
and I want me to be as independent with my rag rug making as possable. 
Since I don't know any person who is blind and who soes strips of favric 
together, I am sending this message on the mailing lists for anyone who 
is blind and who knows to soe for advice. I know as a blind person that 
we often use different ways than sited people to do our normal daily 
tasks. I believe that soeing is one of those tasks. If you are on the 
mailing lists and you happen to know a blind person who knows how to soe 
but that person is not on the mailing list, I give you permition to pass 
this E Mail onto them as well. To all blind people who knows how to soe, 
how would I soe as a blind person? Are there techniques that I need to 
know? If so, can you please tell me what they are? You may either 
contact me on the mailing list or at my E Mail adress.
> My E Mail is:
>
> Baltimore777 at comcast.net
>
> I would really appriciate this!!!
> Kendra Schaber
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