The Sew Expo Adventure, Part 3

I have certain expectations when I take a class. I want the teacher to communicate exactly what we’re going to learn and how we’re going to learn it. Handouts should be presented in an organized format. If there is a project, it needs to do a good job of illustrating the technique(s) and be able to be completed in the allotted time. My Friday classes fell short of those expectations.

The morning class was Serging for the Home. The teacher was Pam Damour. I did not recognize her name when I signed up for the class, but she introduced herself as one of the authors of this book, which I own:

Not only did she introduce herself as the author, but she boasted that it was “probably the best serger book ever written.” I rolled my eyes at that. This book was a disappointment to me. It really should have been marketed as a coverstitch book, not a serger book. If you don’t have a serger with coverstitch capabilities, you can only do about a third of the techniques and projects included in the book.

Personality conflicts happen. I am aware that I am not everyone’s cup of tea. However, the teacher can do much to set the tone of the class, and I could tell we were going to have problems right from the beginning. She came across as disorganized and rude. At one point, she stopped the class and yelled at a student to put her cell phone away. The woman had stepped to the back of the classroom to take an emergency call from her husband (he couldn’t find his keys). I didn’t even know this woman was on her phone until the teacher stopped the class. That could have been handled much differently. She also made several jokes that I thought were unprofessional and inappropriate.

We were given a kit that included enough supplies to make a placemat with decorative flatlock stitches and a couple of rolled edge napkins. Most of the women in this class, however, had never seen or used these top-of-the line Bernina sergers. Flatlock and rolled edge are not basic stitches, but they require some practice. The placemat pattern was far too complicated, even with the handout. We were instructed to cut a piece off the side of the placemat, then sew it back on with a second piece of fabric to form a pocket. That was unnecessarily fussy. Once the pocket was done, we were supposed to draw guide lines for the flatlock stitching at 60-degree angles across the fabric. The handout indicated to space them 2” apart, but then we were told no, space them 3” apart. Straight vertical lines would have been far better for demonstrating the technique, especially because we had to be careful that the 60-degree lines didn’t cut across the pocket.

Because of the complexity of the project and the fact that there were 30 of us, the class never found a rhythm. We did not get to the rolled edge napkins because we ran out of time to change the threading and settings on the machines. I came home and took my placemat apart and repurposed the fabric.

The afternoon class was only marginally better. The teacher was a Bernina Educator and the class was Cozy Socks on the Overlocker. This class had no handout, because—as the teacher explained—we were supposed to “be creative” and “use our imaginations.”

Yeah, no. Here was a room full of women with that deer-in-the-headlights look—because most of them had never seen these machines before—who were being thrown into the deep end and expected to swim. Right off the bat, we had problems. The teacher told everyone to take the scrap piece of fabric next to the machine and test the stitch. I could tell immediately that my machine wasn’t set up correctly, but that’s because I’ve used this model. The machines had been in coverstitch mode for a previous class and one of the knobs needed to be turned back to a default setting. I fixed my machine and the machines of two women sitting nearby.

The teacher had one illustration on the flipboard at the front of the room, but it made no sense because we had no context. Thus, she had to come around and explain, in detail, exactly what she wanted us to do. All of that could have been helped considerably by a handout with a detailed line drawing and/or photos and a list of the measurements we needed to take. Some people had problems with the fabric in their kits not having been cut on grain. Half the students had microfleece from Joanns and half had an athletic knit fabric from an indie fabric supplier.

Eventually, I figured out what she wanted us to do and I went ahead and made my socks.

The idea has potential. I’m going to play around with it a bit more. I’d like to try making a pair in some compression-knit fabric.

It was after these two classes that I decided that perhaps I should apply to teach at Expo next year. I have the background and expertise and I know I could provide a better class experience than the ones I had. In addition to sewing classes, Expo also offers quite a few knitting classes. I could dust off some of my shorter knitting classes and submit proposals for them.

We’ll see. I keep saying I have no desire to get back on the teaching circuit like that—even regionally—but the temptation is great.