I am not sure I have adequately expressed what I am trying to do with my YouTube videos and accompanying downloadable workbooks.  I am hoping to pass along the skills and techniques I have learned and use in the making of my wall art quilts and possibly other sewing in an affordable way.  I am thinking about the advanced beginner, intermediate, and even advanced quilter or fabric artist when I am making these.  There are many many many such videos out there for the basic beginning quilter, but not so much for those who are ready for a little more.

I guess you know already that such videos and workbooks are not free to make.  There is a fair amount of technology and equipment involved–sewing machines, cameras, lighting equipment, tripods, computers, software, website maintenance fees, and then there are the fabrics, threads, paints, and other supplies required to test, practice and make the various pieces.  This does not include the hours at all.

For you, the YouTube videos are free.  The accompanying workbooks and patterns are either free downloadables, as in the first set on Wool Applique by Machine, or are or will be downloadable from my website shop normally for something under $10.  The one for my first tree project is just $5.  If you both buy the workbooks and view the videos, you have a full class.

My blogs and videos will frequently have links to products I recommend and use myself that work with a particular project I present.  Not all, but some of those products are affiliated links, where I get a small percentage of the sale if someone purchases them using that link (not if they just look at them and go buy them somewhere else…I have gotten lots of clicks but no purchases from these links so far).  The cost for the products is not increased in any way from my affiliations.  It is from the affiliations and the workbooks that I hope to make a little money to fund the continuation of the YouTube videos and give me a little play money.  Eventually, if I get as many as 1000 subscribers and 4000 viewing hours within a 12 month period, I might be able to receive a little from YouTube, but it would not cost the viewer anything.  Of course, there are ads on the videos, which is something I have no control over, but that is how YouTube funds itself.  I have had people tell me they won’t watch my YouTube videos because there are ads. I also have found out that some people think that subscribing to a YouTube requires signing up and paying money or filling in a form.  Truly, they should have called it “Follow” because all it requires is clicking the red Subscribe button.  I have had others say I should provide kits, but I have no storage space, time, and money required to do kits.  It takes hours and hours.  I did kits for my classes I taught locally in the past, so I know.  But I do have good instructions with lists of what you need in my workbooks.

I’m not begging here, but want to let you know that if a maker decides they want to contribute to this process to keep these things going in some other way than subscribing to my channel, watching my videos, buying the workbooks or linked products, there is a Donate button on the lower right side of my blogs.

I decided to give this all a good try until the end of this year.  I have a clear concept of how I am approaching the teaching films for at least the next year.  There are sets of things, like continuing working with wool fabric art by machine, learning how to make Landscape Elements (trees, rocks, mountains, water, and top it off with a larger piece using them all); Experimental Fabric Art (you can watch my video on that to get an idea of this); Heirloom Quilted Fabric Art (this is something I will explain at a later blog, but you can get the idea by seeing Out of Mom’s Workbasket quilt), and other sets. Periodically, I will show the making of a show quilt, but it will not be a class format.  So if you follow my videos, blogs, and download the workbooks over the course of several months, it is my hope you will learn or perfect a fairly sophisticated set of quilted artistic sewing and quilting skills and techniques and can go and have a lot of fun in your studio making your own.  I am trying to figure out how to open a way for you to share what you make some other way than Facebook, but haven’t gotten there yet.

Sew happy everyone!  Tell me in the comments what you think of this plan, provide me with some ideas for what you really really wish someone to teach online if you want, and come fly with me through the wonderful world of quilted fabric art.  But above all, have fun in your studio!