Last Time?

So.  Here I go again.  For the 'last' time?

I made the decision earlier in the year that I would not accept workshop bookings from guilds.  It had all just gotten to be...too much.

Too much scrambling trying to find several groups in a regional area to keep travel costs lower.  Too much travel agent type work, trying to make sure I could get from place to place.  Without too many (unpaid) days between events.  Too much financing of said travel costs.  Too much inventory of yarn I don't normally use, but needed for the workshop topics.  Too many binders of drafts, which always, always, need to be edited specific to the workshop.  (This one every loom is a table loom so I had to go through and convert every single draft to liftplan.)

Too much administrivia.  Too much.

This workshop is in BC, so travel isn't horrible.  (It will still take all day to get there, because of going from one small airport to another small airport, via Vancouver airport.)

Better yet, my host/ess are friends of decades and it will be wonderful to go a couple of days early and have a visit.

In the end we have 17 students, a pretty full class (I will take up to 20 for most topics, depending on a room the correct size for that many students and looms.)

It's also a topic I thoroughly enjoy (lace weaves), plus the guild program on the Monday will be on wet finishing.  But that means a checked bag, filled with examples.  :)

The guild has also offered to help with the conference, so I will be delivering some of the materials they will need.

There is a certain level of nostalgia as I commit to making this workshop the last guild workshop I will do.  (Yes, I've already turned down a guild this summer, in spite of really wanting to go where they were!)

I have just a couple more commitments - other than Olds classes - to finish.  And then next year I will be going through all my teaching samples and sorting them into the various Olds curriculum levels, which will make preparing for those classes so much easier.  Right now my samples are scattered all over the studio as we emptied boxes and bins looking for textiles for the book.  I really need to put them all away again - just can't face that job right now.

All of the workshop materials need to go into the mail on Monday so that the drafts and yarns can be distributed to the participants and they can get their looms ready for the workshop the weekend following our Thanksgiving holiday.  That may seem 'early', but it's summer, people are away, as I will be for two weeks the end of this month, beginning of next.  So this really had to be done before I left.

I won't miss the constant juggling of my schedule, keeping an eye on these sorts of deadlines.

Who knows, maybe I'll even get to make a few jigsaw puzzles over the winter?

Currently reading Beautiful Scars; Steeltown secrets, Mohawk skywalkers and the road home - a memoir by Tom Wilson.