I have been invited to teach at about eight national conferences over the past 10 years. These have been for organizations representing a wide range of fiber art genres like the Surface Design Association, Handweavers Guild of America, International Old Lace Society, and the Association of Sewing and Design Professionals. Usually I have taught some kind of technology-related topic, like digital fabric design or behind the scenes of an Etsy shop and I LOVE teaching at these kinds of events.
Recently we had to cancel two of the classes I was scheduled to teach and I made a post about it just to let people know. Someone on social media commented that it was a shame that they were cancelling things so early, since it’s about 6 weeks before the event is scheduled. I thought to myself “Early?!” and then realized that I should write a blog post about the process of teaching at one of these events because this seems anything but early to me. I’ll use this most recent conference as an example. Although the details are different for every one, most of them coordinate things on a similar timeline.
Application
I first applied to teach at this conference in March 2025, before they had even announced the event location. It was a conference I taught at before so I know that no matter where it ended up being that they were going to put on a great event.
The application for teaching at an event like this is complex. For this event, first there’s a whole section about me: listing my teaching experience, awards, accomplishments, and credentials. It’s kind of a section to sell yourself as an expert in your area. Many more “modern” craft conferences I’ve seen just ask for your social media handle and number of followers, which is certainly easy, but I think short-changes a lot of really awesome teachers who are not social media kind of people. I’ve had applications to these kinds of shows rejected multiple times, even though I have all kinds of awesome teaching experience because my Facebook page didn’t have the requisite number of followers. It’s a different strategy for recruiting participants for sure.
This application also requested a letter of recommendation from someplace you had previously taught, which was an extra step to figure out who to ask and to get that to submit.
Next is a section about what you want to teach. In general conferences usually have a variety of formats: 90 minute lectures, 2-3 hour class, 1 day or multi day classes. I always try to propose at least 5 different things so I give the organizers a way to book me multiple ways. I like to be busy if I go, so I like being able to teach two half day classes in a day and it helps the conference organizers split things like travel costs and lodging across multiple events.
I think for this conference I proposed 5-6 different sessions of different lengths. I did a variety of things from technology/artist development topics to some hands on mixed media/fiber art kinds of topics so I had what I felt like was a lot to offer.
Class Proposals
Proposing a class might seem like the simplest part of this process, but for me it’s the most complicated because there are so many details to think of.
Can I teach this in a space with no wifi access?
This happens ALL the time at conference centers. Wifi access is always terrible at every conference center I’ve taught at. I remember one time calling my husband from the conference after the first day and having him switch our cell phone plan to unlimited data so I could tether my laptop to the cell phone and get through class the next day. Not even kidding. This often means that I have to think of different ways of teaching things. Something that I would normally just do a live demo (like showing how to edit an Etsy listing) I will have to do with slides/screenshots or pre-recorded video, which changes the preparation for the class a lot.
Can I transport all of the tools/materials I need to teach this? Does it have supplies people can’t bring in a carry on (ie bookbinding awls)?
Balancing what you are asking students to bring and what you are providing is a whole puzzle. I don’t ever want people to have to bring bulky things in their suitcase that they are going to have to bring back home again (ie. rolls of waxed paper). It’s pretty easy to bring scissors, but a utility knife is more problematic. So I need to think through all of that because part of the proposal is the materials fee (for what I am providing to them) and a supply list of what they need to bring. I have to know all of that when I propose the class.
Is it appealing to a wide range of skill levels?
This comes down to filling the class. It’s awesome to offer an advanced level class, but you seriously cut down on the number of students who are going to have the pre-requisites to take your advanced class. And since I have no input on the schedule, the class might get scheduled opposite something else cool and then the pool of potential students is reduced even more. So I try to think of things that I can do with as many different skill levels as possible.
Can I teach it effectively for 25+ students at a time?
Many conferences have a minimum class size of 25 students. It’s very different planning to teach an embroidery class for a class of 6 versus a class of 30. I have to really think about the reality that there’s one of me and I can’t demonstrate something one-on-one for more than 25 students. So the project and style of what I teach is different than what I would propose for a local class at an art center.
I had what I consider an epic fail in a class once that I just didn’t think through how much longer it would take for everyone to come and choose colors of felt or thread with a class of 30 people than in my typical class of 8. We didn’t come close to finishing our project and I still feel badly about that.
Describing it.
Once I have figured out the class topic, then I need to write a description. This is usually locked in to what I write in the proposal, so if I don’t get it fine tuned when I apply, it’s often a huge hassle to edit it later after it’s accepted. So I need to make sure I get this in as close to final form as I can.
Proposals often require a photo, so I also need to take time out and create a photo that can be used on the website and socials. If I am proposing a new project (to fit those conference style parameters) this sometimes means I need to stop and make a sample so I can photograph it. Since I often teach topics that are an artist business skills or tech class, that sometimes means inventing a compelling graphic to use since there’s nothing to photograph.
Writing the supply list.
This often needs to be submitted with the application so I need to do the math and come up with the materials fee (for things I am supplying) and write a detailed materials list of what students need to bring. Which means I need to have a pretty detailed lesson plan in mind when I am writing the proposal.
Organizing it so I don’t forget what I was thinking.
Because the timeline is so long (18 months between proposal and teaching) I usually put each class into it’s own google doc and I put every note for the class together. I start with a rough lesson plan, write out the materials list and all of my thinking/math behind it, write the description and add the photo right in the same doc. It’s so easy to forget “why did I decide that $45 would cover everything?” or what were the tasks that I was thinking of when I said students would learn XYZ in the description. This helps enormously when it gets closer to the class and it’s time to prep.
Waiting.
Please note in this timeline, that so far I’ve done about 5-6 hours worth of work and I haven’t even submitted these proposals yet. Usually you have to wait a couple of months before you know if anything you’ve proposed is accepted to the conference. I submitted in March and heard back around the end of May. For this conference they accepted two of the half-day classes I proposed.
Teaching stipends vary wildly from conference to conference; I’ve been offered $150 and $600 to teach the same 3 hour class session at two different events. The way this conference handles travel/lodging stipends for teachers is based on how many hours of teaching you are doing. Because I was only teaching 1 full day, I got only a partial offer to cover my travel expenses. It wasn’t what I was hoping for, but I knew that I liked teaching at this conference and it would be a great experience so I accepted, knowing that I would basically just break even after I had covered all of the expenses, essentially teaching for free.
I was a little concerned that both of the sessions I was teaching had been slotted in to the Sunday class sessions; Sunday was the last day of the workshop sessions for the conference. At every conference I’ve taught at, classes on the last day are always the hardest to fill because people are leaving to head back home. I signed the contract about 15 months before the event.
I also signed up to staff the “teacher booth” in the vendor hall at the conference, and to do a couple of volunteer shifts because I was going to need to fly in the day before to be able to be ready to teach at 8 am. Since my classes didn’t have a lot of supplies to bring, I’d have room in a suitcase and I could sell things at the teacher booth (like my new book) and possibly make a little extra income.
Registration & promotion.
Registration opened for the conference in September 2025, about 11 months before it was scheduled to happen and I participated in every optional event I could. In the late summer, I did a 5 minute video presentation about my sessions that the organization put on their YouTube channel. Teachers could do a “commercial” or a mini demo to help promote classes. This is the first conference that I’ve been a part of that has done this and I thought it was great. In October, I taught a couple of mini-online classes for the same organization and mentioned my conference classes. I posted them on my website and newsletter and social media and talked about what I was doing.
In December we got our first “check in” of how many students we had registered for our sessions. Conferences usually have a huge rush right when registrations open and then a trickle for the rest of the time. My numbers were pretty sad and I felt kind of discouraged. At this point I have invested about 10 hours of time into this conference between proposals, promotions, and paperwork. I did another social media campaign and encouraged people to share even if they weren’t interested in the conference itself to try to get the word out to a larger audience. I continued to post about it in my newsletter and talk about it as one of the events I had coming up when I did other classes and demos in the spring.
The conference organizers did a huge social media campaign in the spring and early summer. It is hands-down the best promo work for any conference I have participated in. They did a great job tagging teachers in posts and I really liked how they would pick a theme and highlight 5-6 sessions that fit the theme, really showing a more complete picture of all the different ways you could participate in the conference activities. I re-posted and shared and all the things with the posts that included my sessions. They bought ads. They did a lot of work and made it easy for me to amplify that. I also did a talk for their YouTube podcast and did a big plug for the classes at the end of that too and I know at least one person registered right then!
We had several more check ins in this time and I had doubled the number of people registered, but it still was only about half of what we needed to make it go. I feel like we did everything right, but it just wasn’t coming together.
The deadline.
The beginning of July (about 6 weeks prior) was the deadline to make a decision for whether classes would run or not. The reason I wrote this post is that someone commented that it seemed really early, especially since the registration didn’t close for about 4 more weeks. But there are really practical reasons for that. At 6 weeks out, airline tickets start to be a problem. The prices go up and the availability goes down. I would have to fly to this conference because 18 hours of driving each way to teach 6 hours of classes is just not practical. And there is the reality that even though there are people who do sign up at the last minute, attending a big conference isn’t a spur-of-the-moment kind of decision in general.
There’s also the real factor of the class size. Although I could have just said yes and taught a class of 2 students, that is going to be a very different class than that 25 person class I designed and proposed. There are a lot of class activities like discussions, demos, and brainstorming that are not the same with only 3 people in a room. I have always felt like it is way more difficult to teach a class of 3 than a class of 12.
We had a great talk and brainstormed different ways we could still teach the classes and have it work out, but it just boiled down to the fact that the numbers didn’t work for me or the organization.
The followup.
I posted on my social channels about the classes being cancelled and had a few comments about not getting discouraged, which I appreciate. It is disappointing. Checking back in with my tally, I think I probably invested about 12 hours in an opportunity that turned out to be no income for me. No new connections, no networking, no fun conference to attend. And even though it isn’t anything I did wrong, there is a negative vibe of being the teacher whose classes got cancelled, like they weren’t good enough or that something was wrong about them. And I had to announce that to the world.
But I know that’s not true. There were probably 10 different people at the core of putting together these classes to offer them at the conference and all of those people are absolute experts in their field. I am a good teacher and I know how to put together a great class. The staff that puts together this conference has decades of experience in knowing what people want at a conference and what they are going to sign up for. That application process means that they have all the information to get really excellent and expert people as presenters. The marketing people did their jobs getting the word out. We all 100% want this to succeed.
So it boils down to, what did go “wrong”?
- The economy is a factor. Going to a conference is really expensive.
- I think the time of year could be a factor. My sister’s kids are already going back to school in late August when the conference is happening.
- The Sunday scheduling was a factor. This was a change from previous conferences having the classes end on Sunday and not the following week. Maybe that shifted how/when people were registering for things.
- Honestly, I think the organizers offered too many sessions that looked too similar. There were several other “artist development” sessions that overlapped in some ways with what I was teaching. They were different topics if you read carefully, but at first glance I think they might look too similar.
- I wasn’t teaching the flashy stuff. By teaching about how to sell your work or write a newsletter, I am not teaching the “fun” classes. There aren’t inspiring sample photos or projects to draw people in and I think that means they fall to the bottom of most people’s “must do” list.
I’m hoping this post helps provide some insight and transparency around what goes on behind the scenes from a teacher’s perspective and makes a tiny bit of that work I did into a post that might be an educational artist development experience for one of you!
It changes the way you think about starting a project from “what should I buy” to “what do I have?”. It forces you to think about the potential in what’s sitting in front of you instead of curating the perfect color match. The limitations of what you have become part of the problem solving. And for me, this is really the fun part. Sometimes a technique I learned for fabric turns out to work beautifully on paper. Sometimes paper does something I wish fabric would do. And sometimes I make something that sits somewhere in between and makes the whole question of which category it belongs in seem a little silly.
In the past two weeks, I’ve written and submitted two grant applications and an article proposal, written seven blog posts for a partner, submitted work for three juries, taught three classes, designed and proposed another class and made the samples, and shipped about a dozen orders from my Etsy shops. And that’s just the stuff I remember. I also have also personal stuff going on (who doesn’t?!), laundry that needs doing, and I don’t think we’ve mowed the lawn in months. I’m sure this sounds familiar.
This week felt a little like a game of Jenga. Everything was rolling along, and then something minor happened that added one more thing to the endless task list. And it had a lot of unknowns. Everything wobbled. I spent 45 minutes doing dumb little computer admin tasks, supposedly trying to motivate myself to go cut down some paper for a project. I picked up and put down a couple of other projects. I was scattered and couldn’t seem to do anything.
For literally decades, my art was designing fabric and sewing clothes. I still do that, but I’ve been doing it less and less. I started thinking today about why that is. Do I not like sewing anymore? Nope. That’s not it. It’s that I don’t like all of the “baggage” that comes with sewing.
I made the covers last night so they could sit overnight for the glue to dry. It turns out paper is easy. These are all made from scraps. There’s some marbled paper I made in a class and some recycled security envelopes. I stamped on some with hand-carved stamps. I used some pieces of wood veneer. I can get paper nearly anywhere and a lot of it costs me next to nothing. These are bound with waxed linen because it’s the thread I like the best and I do have to order that online, but I don’t have to have it. I’ve also bound books with embroidery thread and a chunk of beeswax from the farmers market.
