A challenging class

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.