Recently (May 2021) I gave a talk to a quilting group that I absolutely love to give.  Challenge & Extend talks about my experiences of teaching and shares examples of some of the sample quilts I use for classes and workshops, and the student quilts that they inspire.

What is your Superpower?

I am passionate about teaching.  In my opinion, my role is to inspire others to create what is in their minds.  I don’t necessarily give them something that is pure “Sheena” to copy.  However, there is often a pattern to follow as well.  After all, we all have times when we want a safety net!  And times when we want to live (at least a portion of our life) without one.  I shared that sometimes I teach techniques where people learn without the pressure of a final project.  Other times the teaching is project based, though always with opportunities to challenge and extend!

Technique or Project?

I am pretty confident that the talk went down well (big sigh of relief!) and there were some lovely comments.

• “Sheena was brilliant and I am so glad that I booked her lecture amongst all the lovely talks and workshops we now have access to on Zoom.  I teach Young Quilters and I have picked up so many useful tips from her (they frequently want to bend the rules and adapt a project!). “
• “I really enjoyed listening to Sheena and seeing all that lovely work.”
• “A very good talk with so many ideas. I live in Letchworth but didn’t realise she taught at the Settlement!”

This group was local to me.  However, as it was taking place over Zoom we had visitors from much further afield too.  Something I really appreciate about this past year is the development of Zoom for Talks and Workshops.  It means we can all improve our carbon footprint by travelling less, and we can join in with events that otherwise would not be accessible to us.