Be a Good Student

I taught a Laundry Day Tee class at the quilt store yesterday to six students. Seven registered, but one had to make a trip out of town unexpectedly. All in all, it was a very good class. Every student finished a top by the end of the day, although most took theirs home to hem. I had one motivated student who cut and finished two tops, because she’s leaving on a trip today and wanted to take them with her.

I did get a bit preachy at the beginning of class about students coming to class prepared—or rather, not prepared. Once again, I had people show up and tell me they didn’t have a pattern, so we went over the need to check the supply list for links to patterns and details about what to bring. The store owner overheard part of my sermon and said that she would make some changes at the registration end of things. I also made a point of saying that just because a pattern was free on the internet did not mean that we were entitled to do whatever we wanted with it, and that part of using a free pattern involved supporting the designer in other ways. I encouraged my students to go to the Love Notions website and purchase at least one pattern.

I think I got the point across. Truly, though, it is a PITA for the teacher when people don’t come prepared. I had one lady who came with no pattern and no fabric, so she was behind from the start of the class. She was able to finish a top, but she required extra help from me in finding fabric and getting the pattern traced in her size.

I’m not opposed to helping people figure out how to download and print patterns—I know that some of this technology is new—but those arrangements have to be made before class.

I sound like a grump, but I do love teaching. One of my students made her LDT from some crepe fabric, which was a real leap but worked beautifully. I wouldn’t have thought of using crepe. It is stretchy enough that the only change she had to make was to cut the neckband on the bias. And now I want to make an LDT out of some crepe I have in the stash.

Another student made her LDT entirely on her sewing machine (and used some Walmart remnant rack fabric). Yet another student—who wasn’t very comfortable with her machine when she started—was serging like a rock star by the end of class. She made a gorgeous long-sleeve LDT with the cowl neck option and modeled it for us when she was done.

I loved that each student was willing to experiment a bit and choose the pattern options that worked for her.

After class, I headed back to the church to help clean up after the sale. Here are a few more pictures:

This was Sarah’s table full of linen handtowels and beeswax candles. These were very popular at last year’s sale. Sarah has done a lot of craft shows and knows how to create a beautiful display.

Sunnie had a number of paintings for sale, too:

I have a couple of her paintings. One hangs in our bedroom and I get to look at it every morning. The scene is the pasture behind Sunnie’s house and it’s one of my favorite spots in our little community.

Our last customer left at 4 pm and our group got to work. While the cashiers did the final calculations—we surpassed last year’s total—the rest of us collected the items that were left, packed them up, and put the church back the way we found it when we started. It helps that this is my church because I know where everything lives and I’m also the person with the key to the door. We were done in an hour and a half.

I came home, had some dinner, and went to bed. The husband was out in the shop repairing a cylinder on the forklift, so we didn’t get a chance to visit with each other. (The repair was completed successfully.) I have to play at church this morning but I plan to relax this afternoon. This has been a busy couple of days. I am looking forward to having a break. It looks like the rain is ending for a while, too, but still no frost in the forecast.