A Sunny Monday in June

Task #1 on the list for yesterday morning was class proposals. I am tentatively scheduled to teach at a store near Seattle at the beginning of September. (The official announcement will be made when the listing is up on their website.) I talked to their class coordinator last week and we selected the date and the classes. I told her that I would provide photos, class descriptions, skill levels, and my supporting business documentation by the beginning of this week so they could begin marketing the classes.

Sew Expo used to ask teachers to submit complete class proposals, including photos, but there was no guarantee that any or all of the classes would be chosen. Submitting complete proposals is a lot of work, especially if it’s a new class. It takes time to make and photograph class samples. When I taught for TKGA, they required a complete syllabus broken down by time (15 minutes on topic XYZ, 10 minutes on topic ABC) as well. Two years ago, Sew Expo went to a different model. They asked teachers to submit a list of class ideas and descriptions. Their class coordinator calls each teacher to talk about the classes in more detail. Who is this class for? What skills do students need? What skills will they learn? How do you see the class unfolding time-wise? Only after the list of classes is nailed down does the teacher have to submit the formal, complete proposal for each one. It frees teachers to be more creative about their class offerings and I think Sew Expo’s overall slate of classes is much stronger as a result.

Sew Expo’s class coordinator and I met back in February and chose the classes I’ll be teaching in 2027. I have until September to submit my formal proposals, but I wanted to get them done now and off the to-do list. Half of the classes are new, so they required photos. (Thankfully, I had a lot of class samples already made for those classes.) I decided to go ahead and take all new photos for all of the classes for both the store and Sew Expo.

Photography is just about my least favorite thing to do. Part of that is because the lighting in my house is so awful. Outside photos look much better, but they require an overcast day without rain (or snow). I’ve got a 3' x 3' light box—an actual box, not a surface with a light beneath it—that I sometimes use to take photos. Garments don’t fit in the box, but it works for most things.

I set up the box and took a bunch of different photos. I try to imagine how the photo will look in a mailer or on the website. Does it communicate what it needs to communicate? Are the colors accurate? Is there enough detail?

I spent most of the morning and an hour after lunch working on this, but all of my proposals are done and submitted. Yay.

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The husband got the deck joists in place on Sunday, in between bouts of sun, rain, wind, and hail. It was a bizarre weather day.

He put a couple of pieces of plywood down on top so I can get into the house and clean. I still have to climb a short ladder, but I don’t have to tiptoe across the joists. I think he’s hoping to get the decking on this weekend.

After I finished my class proposals yesterday, I decided to work on the Made by Rae Rose Pants. They went together more quickly than I anticipated. All that is left to do is to attach the waistband, insert the elastic, and hem them. (Late afternoon sun coming into my sewing room. 🫤)

This is not the best quality fabric—Joanns rayon/linen—but it’ll do for these. I will field test them and decide if I want to make another pair out of the royal blue tencel twill in my stash.