I taught 4 classes- 4 nights and 2 weekend days. Phew! And I learned so much.

First we did the owl as seen in the last post. Then the swaddled baby.

The 4 hours scheduled was nowhere near long enough. Next time, 6 hours. The faces take a good amount of time and concentration.

Then, 2 nights of Perfect Puppies. There was lots of laughing and doggie talk here. And the dogs came out great! Well, the almost finished versions that I saw. I hope I’ll get more photos of completed pups.

And lastly, 2 long afternoons of foxes.

Wow!

This is how it was from my perspective. I want to do more teaching so when Virginia of Gather Here asked me to do the Artist-in-Residence, we decided that I’d teach.  I volunteered to teach 4 classes, 3 of which I hadn’t even written the patterns for. Yes sir, jumping into the fire here. Because really, not only were the patterns not written, I have very little teaching experience. I’ve taught in my house where I have all my stuff and I taught a class with my doll club where I knew everyone. This past week was the first time I was working in a new environment with strangers- scary!  I’m a worrier and a homebody. Knowing I’d committed to being out of the house for a week, I worried that I’d get the flu (nope, my husband got it though), I’d have horrible insomnia the whole week, I’d forget everything I needed, etc, etc. I can always think of endless things to worry about! Of course it was all fine. I didn’t get sick, I was so tired at the end of the day that I crashed every night, and everything I forgot, they had there- of course, cuz you know, it’s a store!

Every day I’d start to get really anxious about half an hour before the class started. By 15 minutes into the class I was fine. Phew!

I was a little flummoxed by a different sewing machine but there was always a helper to work with the students on the machines. And I got to play with some new to me tools/toys like these light-weight Gingher scissors- I really liked them.

Honestly, I am so proud of myself for doing this. It was totally out of my comfort zone in a lot of areas- writing the patterns, teaching out of the house, so many people I didn’t know. But I learned so much by watching how people worked, the mistakes they made, the mistakes I made. I will be doing some tweaking on the patterns based on the experience. And everyone was so great! Thanks all you amazing students! I want to see more photos!

I hope to be finishing the patterns in the next few weeks. The Swaddled Baby will come first. I’ll keep you informed!