Yesterday was a teaching day. I taught a basic "How to Build a Stitch "Bible". I had never taught it before, and was concerned that there was so little actual "meat" in terms of content. The morning was spent preparing the fabric base for the stitching. I had carefully planned out the preparation in about 8 step by step instructions, but had made an un-suspected error in the supply list. I use a lot of fusible web, and can't really afford the very good stuff, Misty Fuse, in the amounts I use. So I will buy an entire bolt of something like Trans-Web, or WonderUnder. I'm now on my 5th bolt. It's been awhile since I bought any, and yesterday I found out that both now are sold without transfer paper attached. All of my instructions require the benefits of transfer paper. But we struggled through, and were actually ready to stitch sooner than I had expected. Then my role was just one of being available for questions. Since my first answer, intentionally, was "What does your manual say?", I shouldn't have had that much too do, but I was kept busy. There were questions, and one lady appeared to be having a major disagreement with her machine, that took awhile to sort out. Another had only been quilting for two years and had never used a machine previous to that, but she had an excellent manual, and a willingness to use it..
The gratification came whenever a student would say "I never knew my machine would do that!!" This happened many times, and proved that the workshop was a valid one. The class started calling this an "eureka" moment. I also surprised myself at how well I was able to troubleshoot the various machines. When the time came,I didn't have any qualms about accepting the cheque when it was offered.
I have a couple of picture of the students hard at work. It was difficult to get a picture when the room didn't look like this, as everybody quickly learned to work from their manual.
For the past couple of years, I've participated in a home based craft sale, in December. There are three of us who form the core of the sale, but the others have come and gone. Not necessarily because of anything to do with the sale, but things like illness and moving out of the area have contributed. This year we are taking a slightly different approach. We are meeting once a month for an afternoon, and working on our craft. We are using the meeting room of a local restaurant, and have invited anyone in the area to join us, via Facebook. If nothing else, we hope that we'll all have enough made to justify having the sale, and will have organized a means of promoting it.
This week, I'm laid low by back problems, but have almost finished two, of what I hope will become many, tree ornaments suitable as sale items. They will just need a hanging cord, and I plan to add suitable artificial leaves or flowers inside. They are made from scraps of Duipionni silk, machine quilted with metallic thread, and hand beaded.
While I spend most of my time with my fibre art, there are times I just want to veg out and do something easy. I've been making donation quilts, but thought I would make something for myself. I could work on something with a bit of a challenge, but but not too mentally challenging. I found picture on the internet that appeared to be for a traditional scrappy quilt, that I could work on bit by bit over as many months or years as it took. It was sold on Amazon and described as being in book, but with a pretty hefty price. With tax and shipping it was $63CDN. It arrived yesterday in a huge envelope and I was excited. What I got was not a book but rather a 20 page 6" by 9" pamphlet. It could have been mailed in a standard 9" by 12" envelope. It did contain a quilt pattern, and a coloured picture of the finished quilt, so that was as advertised. But the only colour was on the paper cover of the thing. This was in no way a "book".
I guess, I got basically what I had ordered, but I still feel very taken advantage of.
