Survey says?

[femkes_follies]

I'm a little perplexed on how to go one here, and so I shall tap the Hive Mind.

I have, so far, no takers for my smocking class. The description DOES say to please contact instructor regarding kits, though a few may be available the day of. BUT - I'm not sure how many people read the descriptions at all, at least prior to the event.

I was planning on taking just a couple extras, meaning to have "custom" kits togther for those who asked. How many kits should I bring? (Kit is all pieces of muslin for a finished shirt/chemise, sewn up as necessary for pleating and pre-pleated for work. Assembly instructions included.) The kit can be made up for a high necked version, open necked version, or with a separate, smocked, standing collar. But they do take me a bit of work. 2 of each?

The same applies to the Picture Perfect competition. I plan to forward a registration form to Sarafina and hopefully someone in the host group can arrange to accept entries if they show up before I arrive. But I only know of one planned entry. Thoughts on how many people will show up at the last minute?

Comments

[xrian]

Unfortunately my experience is that asking people to contact you before the class seldom works. People have the best of intentions, but it seems to be something almost no one actually gets around to doing. About the only time I know that getting people to contact you beforehand works is if the class has limited seating and you have to pay ahead of time in order to get in. (And if this is an SCA class, if that is not the way most classes work, sometimes they still won't do it because they are not used to having to pay a deposit in the SCA.)

You have to be prepared for what you think people are going to want, which unfortunately usually means making up more kits than you are actually going to need. Make a range of sizes and types -- if you know which is likely to be more popular, make more of those.

In your case, it sounds like your kits take a lot more work to put together than most class kits, which makes it particularly frustrating. It's not reasonable for anyone to expect you to make 20 kits ahead of time if none were ordered.

OTOH, if someone arrives late and you don't have a kit in their size/type/preference, you can gently point out that you _did_ ask people to contact you. Hopefully that will educate someone for next time, but it doesn't help at that particular moment.

In the long run, I'd suggest you might want to re-think the class. Perhaps it makes more sense to try to do a lower level of kits, for instance, a simple pre-pleated strip so they can learn and practice the technique, rather than an actual garment. Yes, it's true that fewer people will actually follow through and finish a garment that way, but IMHO you sometimes have to make compromises and settle for doing something simple that works for the class time.

(This is the way I do knitting kits, BTW: I make twenty or so kits up in various color combinations, then they can pick one where they like the main color and do a bit of swapping of accent colors. If they can't find one they can live with, tough beans: but most people seem to be content to pick something that's not their absolute best favorite colors for a small introductory project. And also, BTW, I learned very quickly that the kits HAVE to be made up ahead of time, since there really isn't time to do it IN class.)

HTH!

[femkes_follies]

I was sort of HOPING with the contact bit, but not really expecting. It's a CYA thing. Now, if I don't have what you want, you have only yourself to blame.

The kits aren't THAT hard... Four rectangles, sewn together at the top 4-6 inches, then pleated. Throw in gussets, needle, and floss. And 12 people would be a LOT for a RUM class, anyway.

My perennial problem is one of scope. I just get over-enthused. Alaina and I are teaching together, so trying to cover Germanic and Italian at once. THat might have been an error.

I've done a basic smocking class before. I don't think many people could easily translate it to the garments it was used on, for some reason. So - in trying to correct THAT problem I might have bitten off more than I can chew. Or narrowed the topic to the point that I won't get anybody interested. Heh.

I'll let you know how it actually turns out.