"Some day" is Today: How to Start Teaching Quilting Classes (Finally)
- Tori McElwain
- Jul 8
- 6 min read
Hey Tori! Answering Your Digital Marketing Questions for Creative Entrepreneurs Podcast
“Someday I’ll teach a class.”
If you’ve thought it — maybe said it out loud to a quilting friend, maybe typed it into your notes app and never opened it again — this one is for you. Because here’s the thing about someday: it’s not a date on the calendar. It’s not a goal. It’s a way of putting off something you want to do, something you already have everything you need to start. Something is getting in the way — and it’s almost never your skill.
Welcome to season two of the Hey Tori podcast — now public, with a wider scope: marketing for small quilt and craft businesses, plus more of the business side, guest interviews, and new episodes on Fridays. We’re kicking off with a short series on teaching, built around my book Workshops Unleashed: How to Design Engaging and Successful Workshops for Quilters and Crafters. Today, we’re turning someday into right now.
Hey Tori! Podcast
Listen to the Podcast Episode Here:
What you’ll learn in this post/episode:
What’s actually behind “someday I’ll teach a class” (hint: it’s not a skill problem)
Why teaching is one of the fastest ways to turn a skill you already have into revenue
A look inside all four parts of Workshops Unleashed
How Darla went from “where do I even start?” to $1,600 and four guild invitations in two weeks
A five-minute assignment that could become your first class
What’s Really Behind “Someday I’ll Teach a Class”?
I hear some version of this constantly in the quilting universe, and I’m sure it’s universal across crafting industries: “I have a skill people ask me about all the time, but I don’t know where to start.” Or “I’m scared no one will show up.” Or “I don’t know how to find my students.”
Maybe your skill is free-motion quilting. Maybe it’s paper piecing, English paper piecing, or a specific technique you’ve quietly gotten really good at. Whatever it is, when someone who truly wants to teach keeps saying someday, it’s almost never a lack of skill. Most likely, you’re overqualified.
It’s usually rooted in overwhelm — and overwhelm is typically rooted in fear or anxiety. You don’t know what to teach, you’re stuck on one specific question, or you don’t know where to find students. So the whole thing stays a maybe instead of becoming an actual plan. If that’s you, here’s a question worth sitting with: if I’m feeling overwhelmed, what am I actually afraid of?
Why Teaching Is the Fastest Way to Turn Your Skill Into Revenue: How to Start Teaching Quilting Classes
Most crafting entrepreneurs need more than one revenue stream to keep their business going, and many turn to teaching. Here’s why I’m so passionate about it: teaching is one of the most direct ways to turn a skill you already have into income.
You’re not designing, producing, and shipping a physical product before you make a cent. You’re not building an audience from zero before anyone will pay you. You already have the skill. Teaching monetizes what’s already in your head and what your hands can already do — and you can start now.
Inside Workshops Unleashed: The Four Parts
I built the book to take you from “I have no idea what to teach” all the way through your first launch — and how to stay in touch with the people who don’t buy right away, so you can share your next workshop with them. It has four parts:
Part | What It Covers | What You Walk Away With |
1. Design Your Workshop | Curriculum, objective, methodology, format, pricing | A clear objective, a decision on topic or project, live vs. recorded and in-person vs. online, and a price set with the Price to Thrive approach — pricing for the value of your expertise, not just the hours you spend in front of students. |
2. Elevate Your Workshop | Improving the student experience | Ideas that push your class from decent — where students learn and have fun — to an experience they remember and recommend. |
3. Your Students' Journey | The marketing backbone of the book | A full strategy that guides students into your workshops — from your first post, newsletter description, or flyer, through consistently welcoming new students, including how to pitch yourself for guild lectures so your calendar stays full. |
4. Helpful Add-Ins | Templates, worksheets, and a hidden bonus | Real stories, hands-on exercises, and a full resource section so you're never starting from a blank page — plus a private bonus podcast, Meet Your Colleagues, featuring instructors who turned their craft into income. |
You can’t market a workshop you haven’t designed yet — which is why the book starts with design and saves the marketing for part three, once you actually have something to talk about. And the book stands completely on its own. You don’t need the DMMC or anything else to finish it and build a teaching business from it.
Don’t Want to Do It Alone? Two Ways to Get Support
The free workshop guide. If the book sounds interesting but you’re not ready to spend on it yet, download the free workshop guide first. If you like the guide, you’re going to love the book.
The Workshops Unleashed Book Club. I designed the book club to keep you accountable. The free version runs on email and a Facebook group — we go through the book a section at a time, about 40 pages a week, with weekly accountability posts and me in the group answering questions. If you want more hands-on support, the Business Intensive adds live Zoom meetings and giveaways — including a grand prize of six months inside the Digital Marketing Magic Coaching Program at the Basics tier.
Everyone in the book club also gets the Lead Magnet Masterclass as a bonus — because when we teach, we need to market, and email is still the number one conversion platform we use. This masterclass shows you how to create a lead magnet that grows your list, so every time you have a workshop available, you have people to share it with. And share every workshop with your list, whether it’s in person or online — if you’ve been teaching locally, you may find plenty of people on that list ready to work with you in person.
You don’t need to have read the book first — we read it together.
How Darla Went From Someday to $1,600 in Two Weeks
Darla’s a longarm quilter and an expert in free motion quilting — she runs the machine like she drives a car. She was watching me teach online and in person, receiving guild lecture contracts around the country, and she came to me and said: I’d like to do what you’re doing. She was running out of time for her clients’ quilts, people kept asking about her skills, and she wanted revenue that scaled beyond her hours.
So I sat down and wrote out an entire framework for her — the framework that later became Workshops Unleashed. We were at QuiltCon together, and over two afternoons she designed her entire course with it. One more afternoon built her launch plan. Then she ran it — Instagram, a new email list, a simple website.
During that launch, her local guild started reaching out. From that one workshop, Darla generated $1,600 and picked up four separate guild program invitations. Two afternoons to design it. One afternoon to plan the launch. Someday became right now in two weeks.
That’s why I say teaching can be the fastest way to make money from your skills — because I’ve watched it happen.
Hey Tori Takeaway
Your assignment
Grab a notebook or open the notes app on your phone and finish this sentence:
“People already ask me how to ______.”
That’s it. Don’t overthink it. Don’t decide yet whether it’s good enough to teach. Just write down the real answer.
That sentence can be the start of your first class — or your next one. Over this series, we’re going to grow it into an actual class with an actual plan: write a goal for the class, write out what you want to teach, and pick a platform. Next week, we cover the two ways to start marketing your first (or next) workshop.
If today made you think about that skill you keep meaning to teach, Workshops Unleashed will walk you through designing your workshop, pricing it with confidence, and launching it from start to finish. You can grab it wherever you get books — Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Bookshop.org.
And if you finish the book and want ongoing support with your marketing after your workshop is built, that’s exactly what we do inside the Digital Marketing Magic Coaching Program. No pressure and no pitch — just an option when and if you’d like it. The best first step is a free 30-minute strategy session. Book yours here.
Want me to answer your question? Submit a question here!
About the Author: Tori McElwain is a digital marketing coach for quilting and creative businesses. With 24+ years of quilting experience and a Master’s degree in Education, she helps quilters attract more students, sell more patterns, and grow their businesses online — without losing the joy of creating. She’s the author of “Workshops Unleashed” and cohost of the Quilting on the Side podcast.
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