Art with attitude

I've spent the entire day making French knots (bolitas) and bullion knots (gusanitos) and laughing. Now I'm exhausted!

The whip-cracking, side-splitting Elena and Anabél - mother and daughter - have put the three of us hand embroidery students in detention tomorrow for working too slowly, and it's a measure of what inspiring teachers they are that we all happily agreed to work the extra hour. The alternative is to risk not completing the little bags we're each embroidering, so intricate and difficult is the work. Andrea and Beck (Rebecca) are both deft hands with a needle already - Andrea's a dressmaker and costume historian and Beck's been an accomplished embroiderer for many years - but even they were daunted by the task of covering half of a small glasses case in such fine work in just four days; if we pull it off, we'll equal our two expert teachers in productivity, if not in quality. Definitely not in quality!

Our tour organiser and general guru, Sasha, recommended at the start of the day that we all do as Peruvian children do, and learn by observing our teachers rather than asking a million questions. It was good advice: at first I found it awe-inspiring simply to see how Elena could tie a 16-loop bullion knot to make a petal with just a few deft gestures; then I despaired as I had to keep calling on her to sort out the tangles I'd got mine into. By the afternoon I had assimilated how she fixed my tangles and was able to put them right myself, and somehow the twists of the thread were giving the right result. Her patience was contagious as well, and I almost stopped cursing my clumsiness - particularly since her and Anabél's wicked humour was always on hand to tease us for our mistakes or impatience! Art and attitude: it's a lot to teach in an eight-hour day, but somehow, with vast good humour, they manage it.

Of course Elena has been embroidering for over 40 years, so my expectations remain modest, but it's a joy to see my little garden of knotted flowers grow over the course of the day, and I look forward to giving them stems to stand on tomorrow.