For the Love of Teaching - Holiday Tree Class

At the beginning of this month, a group of fine ladies invited me to teach at their guild. It has been a few years since my teaching muscle has been exercised. I loved every minute of it. When my friend and leader of the Big Springs Quilt Guild, Holley, asked me to teach, my knee jerk reaction was "No!". It had been too long and there was too much else going on and all of those typical excuses rolled through my head. Then I remembered a picture of a quilt that I wanted to make and I asked if that would be a good project for the group. When the answer was yes, I was on the hook to teach.

The original pattern for this project comes from this Moda Bake Shop pattern. Our class version was reduced in size and also had the addition of a checkerboard background.

One of the most exciting parts of the class is that my mom was one of the students. She moved nearby not too long ago and this was the first time she had ever been in a class I was teaching. She is the one sitting down. Hi mom!

Our class time was scheduled from 11-3. Most of the cutting was done in advance so we were able to begin sewing right away. About half way through the class, we all needed a sewing break so everyone gathered around for a lesson.

We talked about seven different methods for making half square triangles. Yep, seven. I showed in process examples and we went over the math. It was a good break and going through the demo helped me decide that yes, half square triangle methods would make a great class all on its own.

Of course there was plenty of visiting and eating and just hanging out.

There was no formal registration for the class so I had all sorts of pre-class jitters. What if nobody shows up? What if I forget something? What if I make no sense at all? I had it in my head that it would be great if eight people showed up. Originally, I made ten copies of my materials. At the last minute, I went back and made an extra ten. And then they started coming...and coming...and coming. All I can really remember about the time before class is that we kept having to go get more tables and chairs and I started getting nervous about shorting out the electricity. The final count for the class...27 students. Of those, there were three or four who did not sew. Wow. I was really blown away. Overwhelmed. And oh so pleased to have the chance to spend the day with this group of quilters.

So far I have seen pictures of three finished quilt tops. It is pretty exciting to see that many finishes less than two weeks after class day. Thank you Big Springs Quilt Guild. It was a very good day.