Writing a New Instruction Book

These last two weeks I have been busy completing the instruction book for the upcoming Poppies pilot class.  It has required a different approach to writing the instructions as it is a study in "random" stitching.  How structured should it be and still be random?  What type of framework should I provide?  I decided on a combined approach, so I began with a small rectangular area where I laid it out as a 6-step process, and gradually expanded the area.  My hope is that as each stitcher works her or his way through the area they will gain more and more confidence.  As I constructed the diagrams with my Stitch Wiz program I combined gray scale and color stitches for clarity.  The diagrams are scaled to be rather large and take up about 3/4 of the space on each page.  Stitchers will also be doing a little spritzing and spraying at the beginning of class to get some color on the canvas.  It should be fun and without a doubt, interesting.  Who can help but be enthused when they open a new bag of threads for a new project! Such fun! Over half the threads in the kit are partial skeins and I tried something new by putting each of the partial skeins onto my new Twitchetts cards and then put all the partials skeins and some of the full skeins on a 2" ring.  I am really interested to get feedback from the pilot stitchers about this new approach.  Pilot classes are always interesting as everything is new....including the teacher. 

I was taking a break today, checking out a few of the blogs on my links and came across Distant Stitchers (listed under Links).  It is way to study through correspondence, email and internet, the City and Guilds Level Certificate for Textiles/Embroidery.  There is also a Diploma program.  It is structured as a three year program.  I looked at the six modules and the material and presentation is very interesting, but I would like to follow the progress of several current participants in the program so I set up links to several of the stitchers blogs.  I grouped them all together under DISTANT STITCH under links.  Thought others might be interested also. 

My self-imposed deadline to complete Flower Diamonds and get in to the finisher is Monday, June 2nd so I will post a finished photo at that time.  I also hope to post some photos soon of new beaded scissors fobs and threader fobs which McCall is working on.  Her stitch markers on Etsy are very cute and well done, so I'm anxious to see these and try them out!

Wishing everyone a great, relaxing holiday.