Busy, busy, busy

As I'm sure everyone else is too - this week I've been concentrating on creating a survey for my patchwork classes next year - it's our Christmas Party today (in about an hour, I best get my skates on..) and it's hosted by the lady I'm taking over from next year.  Chris has been the tutor for around 20 years and is an absolute font of knowledge, let alone a wonderful and generous soul (she's the one who had me adopted into the Threads club - a group of multi-talented ladies who did the course I'm starting next year some time ago - and all have offered help , resources and supplies - I LOVE crafty people.  She's also the one who has encouraged me to take the next step down the teaching path and offered me her timeslots as tutor when she retired - as I say, very generous soul).

The 'classes' really are a general get together where you work on your own thing and Chris is available to help as required; sometimes the ladies don't bring any work with them, they come for the chat (and one lady brings the most divine date scones!).  I know why I joined the class and through the time I spent there this year, I was able to complete my hand pieced Doubled Wedding Ring quilt as well as get to know a group of wonderful ladies with their own stories and experience to share. 

So, I got to thinking, I really need to understand better why these women stay in the class - there really isn't much 'teaching' going on, obviously friendship is a huge part of it - and what is it that I need to do to encourage them to keep coming to class.  So I wrote a survey - I have ideas to introduce a monthly sew-along, incorporating small projects that could be finished in  1-2 sessions.  The remaining time can be spent on their own thing - or a BOM - and create a new quilt - whatever, I'm hoping for a great response rate and have been up making these little pouches as incentive to voice their needs:

I'm going to pick out a random, completed survey and the winner gets to choose one of the little bags.  I've got all bases covered - cute, bright, traditional and japanese fabrics so one of them should suit the winner.

Chris has left me gigantuan shoes to fill but I hope by tailoring a program for the class, I can continue her legacy and provide a place where these women can gather to spend time together, to learn something new and have some fun along the way.

A quick update on the chooks - we've got 5 chicks so far - mum is sitting on about 10 more eggs - we've checked and they all seem viable so we'll wait for another week before we start surreptitiously removing them if they don't hatch (she's very good at donking your hand when it strays too close!)

Here's 4 of her brood - the little blighters won't all stay in the frame at the same time!: