Much of this week has been spent updating my website. I’ve had it for several years and, until now, I’ve only made the odd tweak here and there. Most of the traffic I get is from people looking for longarm quilting tuition.
The last couple of years have been a bit of a voyage of discovery for me. I stopped quilting for hire because I wanted to design pantographs, fabrics and teach more longarming. But I’ve gone around the houses more than once trying to pin down exactly what my business really is.
There have been moments when I’ve thought, This is hard. Maybe I should just give up and settle into retirement. But you know what? I’m not ready for that. I like work. I like challenges. I like learning new things and pushing myself to advance my skills.
Education has always been a big driver for me. In the past, I’ve taught in a fairly ad hoc way, waiting for people to find me, partly because I’ve never enjoyed the marketing side of running a business. But here’s the kicker: you don’t have a business without customers, and you don’t get customers unless you tell them what you have to offer.
So last week, I decided to up the stakes. I reviewed my class offerings, scheduled a proper calendar and set up a ticket sales area on my website. I’m proud of what I achieved. I learned a few new things too: Google tells me my SEO rating is 100% (yay!) but my ‘button accessibility’ score needs work. So I’ve started using webaim.org to check out colour contrast. Website tweaking will always be ongoing, but I no longer dread it because I can learn as I go!
Why We Sign Up to Learn
Thinking about my class calendar got me reflecting on learning more broadly, especially how it changes as we get older and, perhaps even more importantly, what truly drives us to sign up for a class in the first place.
What makes us click enrol on a knitting class, an art class, a longarm quilting workshop? Is it the promise of a new skill? The chance to meet like-minded people? A gentle nudge towards a bigger dream?
When I talk to students, the reasons are rarely just about the skill. Sometimes it’s:
I’ve always wanted to try this and I finally have the time.
I want to prove to myself I can do it.
I need a creative outlet after years of looking after everyone else.
The reason we enroll matters. It shapes our experience, fuels our motivation, and makes it more likely we’ll keep going once the novelty fades.
Planning for Learning
As someone who’s both a student and a teacher, I’ve noticed a few things about learning …
Courses take twice as much time as you think. Beyond the class itself, there’s set-up, practice and mental processing on top of travel, class chat and post-lunch slumps for in-person classes.
We often absorb only half of what’s planned. Not because of poor teaching, but because learning takes energy and as we get older we have less.
As teachers, we factor in time for questions, tangents, and the all-important tea and cake. As students, we need to include a time buffer for reflection, rest, and the interruptions of real life.
This autumn, I’m planning to learn just as much as I teach, making space for learning that fits my life, fuels my curiosity and keeps me going long after the class is over.
Before I sign up, I’ll be asking myself a few questions though :
Why do I want to learn this?
What do I most want to gain from it?
Can I realistically give it the time it needs?
Am I prepared to keep going when it gets tricky or tiring?
Because in the end, it’s not just about what we want to learn, it’s about whether we have the time, energy, and commitment to see it through.
I've recently learned something about me as it relates to "learning something new." Unless I'm inspired or have a vested interest in needing to understand something more, I have little interest in just gaining knowledge for knowledge sake. For example, Linked In is pushing AI Training courses and that everyone should know everything about AI. Until now, I've not really had the desire to know much about AI. It's not until I've been interacting more with Chat GPT during my job searches and need for cover letters, interview prep and recruiter email correspondence did I find the need to better understand how to use AI to my benefit. I think that may be the same for quilters...i.e. until I acquire a longarm, I don't really need to understand the fundamentals of how to longarm quilt. I find if I'm inspired or have a need for a specific technique (Big Stitch, applique, improv, etc) then I'll seek out that education. When I do, I'm looking for an instructor that is not only knowledgeable, but inspirational. I want to hear their insider tips, understand how they're able to execute that technique so well and hopefully walk away from our interactions smarter and more inspired.