The future of Fallingblox & Buildingblox begins to solidify … but first:

Read on if you want to hear an early report on the direction I’m taking with my 2023 (and beyond) workshops — but before that, let’s talk about what’s already on the books:

I will have more virtual and in-person workshops to announce soon, but since time is of the essence, I wanted to let you know that I will be teaching a few workshops at Vogue Knitting Live in NYC next February (2023). VKL doesn’t allow me to link directly to workshops, but here are the ones I’ll be running there; you can go to their main site to sign up. Early bird pricing is in effect until Oct. 27, so get your tickets now!

• Fri, Feb 10, 2-5pm: Intro to Double-knitting (SOLD OUT)
• Fri, Feb 10, 6-9pm: Texture in Double-knitting
• Sat, Feb 11, 2-5pm: Multi-color Double-knitting
• Sat, Feb 11, 6-9pm: Intro to Double-knitting

I have more to tell you about, but it’ll need to wait until workshops are posted! One hint: expect me later in that same month in the Pacific Northwest again …

Now, to business

If you’ve been following my virtual workshops over the pandemic, you may have heard me wax philosophical about how to proceed into a “post-pandemic” world. While you can read more of those musings in a previous blog post, or watch my recent podcast, I want to keep you updated on my current thinking so you know that there is movement, not just silence, from my desk.

I’m not going to offer numbers just yet, partially because I haven’t fully settled on them yet, but I do want to give you advance notification that my prices are going up. Significantly, in some cases. Why? Bottom line: the numbers I was using were based on faulty math. I’ll explain that in a later post.

It’s hard for me to ask for more, but the fact is that if I ever want to realize this as a full-time job, I need to. And here’s the thing: I’m worth it. I am teaching workshops that nobody else in the world is teaching. I’m doing them for 3 hours rather than 2, and I’m recording them so you have access to them for a long time. Anywhere else, you pay much, much more per workshop, and in some cases you don’t get as much as you do from a BuildingBlox workshop.

Will I lose some customers? Almost certainly. I’ve kept my prices artificially low for altruistic reasons, and that means that some people who have gotten used to those prices will not be able to afford the price increases. But I will always be open to negotiating on a case-by-case basis with those who truly can’t afford the prices.

So here’s the breakdown of what the new BuildingBlox workshops are going to look like:

1. There will be almost three times as many workshops, including some project-based ones. This means that a workshop might run only once per year, unless I start offering more than 3-4 per month.
2. Workshops will be scheduled several months out — a whole season at a time, if possible. This will give people more time to plan, more time to enroll, and gives me more time to advertise.
3. Workshops will be charged under a tiered model. Previously called “Levels”, each tier will have a base price. Lower tier workshops (such as Intro to Double-knitting) will be priced lower. As the tier level rises, the price will rise.
4. Workshop recordings will be offered to all workshop attendees for a year from the date of the workshop, using a new portal which I am building into my site to keep people from having to navigate a video hosting site.
5. Workshop recordings will also be sold at a reduced rate (also per tier). So people will have the choice to take the workshop at the time with all the interactivity that entails, or access the recording without the interactivity at a discount.
6. When a workshop runs again, the recording will be replaced in my shop, but the original recording will still be available to any who purchased access to it earlier (until its time limit runs out).
7. In order to take a workshop or buy access to a recording, you will need to have an account on my site. This is the only way I can control access (a guest user can’t be given access to the recording in the same way).
8. Patreon supporters will get a monthly discount code equivalent to a certain amount more than their support tier (in other words, those who support me at $5 might get $10 off a workshop in a given month; supporters at $15 might get $20 off, and so on). It’s my hope that this will encourage more Patreon supporters as well.

In the past, I’ve always tried to avoid making these kinds of big changes without checking with my customer base — I’ve run questionnaires, had focus groups, etc. This time I was counseled from a number of quarters to just make the changes I need to make, and let the chips fall where they may. This is hard for me to do; I care a lot about what my students think about me and my work and workshops, but I also need to make sure I’m able to continue doing this without so many workshop cancellations.

Thank you for understanding. More info will be forthcoming as soon as it solidifies.

Alasdair Post-Quinn, “Softwear Engineer”, Fallingblox Designs