The Eight Minute Demo
I have never talked so fast in my life…
The majority of my time this week was taken up with preparing a demo for the Northern California Quilt Council’s January Jumpstart. NCQC is an organization for quilting teachers and lecturers who travel amongst the Northern California guilds doing workshops and lectures. Link Their website has a very helpful list of teachers and the organization helps advertise guild sponsored shows and raffle quilts. They basically support quilt guilds.
Part of this support is a biannual get together of guild representives and quilting teachers to introduce them to each other. In April teachers present a short, and I mean short (3 minutes), talk of what they have to offer so guilds can plan their programs for the year. They also have the same presentation in July but on Zoom.
I have attended these for the last 3 or 4 years as a presenter. This January they decided to change it up a little with the teachers doing a short, and again I mean short (8 minutes this time), demo of what they do. I signed up (remember this is my year of self promotion phase two) to demo my crazy quilt workshop.
So I stitched up some step outs, meaning examples, of the different stages of making a crazy quilt block using the flip and sew foundation method.
Then I wrote a script to consolidate my thoughts and set a timer to practice. The organizers gave us very strict instructions that the demo could only be 8 minutes long. When I timed mine out it was 20 minutes.
Obviously I had a lot to say.
And I had to whittle it down a tad. So I took maybe 15 steps out of my planned talk. No stitching was included, not even a demo of the embroidery stitches I planned to teach students so they could stitch a spider web design and embellish the seams. After all every crazy quilt had to have two things according to Judith Baker Montano, the queen of crazy quilts and crazy quilt historian. The seams have to be embroidered and the three layers must be tied, not quilted.
So, out went the stitches, out went the pattern tracing, out went the demo portion that showed how to trace and cut the templates. Out went, and this one really hurt, how to hand sew the pieces together. But I had to keep the steps that showed how to organize your pieces (important) and what the flip and sew method was. I also wanted to spend a precious minute talking about why I chose the embroidery patterns featured on my Going Crazy in Lockdown quilt and when I decided to make it an historical quilt as opposed to a quilt that would show off my embroidery skills.
Unfortunately the day of the demos did not start off well. My partner had to be dropped off at work and the freeways were packed. Plus it was raining cats and dogs. I got there 10 minutes before the start time, threw my samples and handouts on the table and quickly set up my quilt rack so I could hang my Going Crazy in Lockdown quilt. Thank you Sara Goer for your help or I wouldn’t have had a chance to do that. Then it was put your foot on the gas and go. The first group was gathered around my table ready to see my presentation.
Eight presentations, or maybe it was nine, later I sat down and hoped I hadn’t made a fool of myself. Thank goodness I had my samples set up or I wouldn’t have been able to focus enough to get the words out in a sensible order. It got to the point that I wasn’t sure if I had repeated the same information to the same group over and over again. Sara and I looked at each other and heaved a big sigh. We did it.
I never had the time to take any photos for this newsletter as I had planned. And I didn’t bring enough handouts and had to ask people to take photos of the last ones I had left. Hopefully they took my business card and went to the website to look up my lectures and workshops. I will call this a success if I can get any bookings.
Self promotion section: my Get Started Crazy Quilting class still has some openings next Saturday, January 20 at Lacis in Berkeley. A 2 session class will show you how to transfer a pattern, attach blocks to a foundation using the flip and sew method, and how to stitch a good luck spiderweb along with seam embellishments. Most importantly, we will talk about how to make this quilt a snapshot of your life. Link