I have a lot of Craftsy classes, and I know I’m not alone in that. In fact, I know two other bloggers who also have a lot of classes, and we’re teaming up to post monthly (we hope) reviews of the classes we’ve taken.

Reviewing along with me are Marsha of Flying by the Seam of my Pants and Naomi of Barely Beige. Marsha and I have done a few blog tours together now, so I think you’ll all recognize her. Naomi is just getting started. I hope you pop over and read both of their reviews, and please make Naomi feel welcome .

Now, let me share with you our real motive behind our plan to do these monthly class reviews – it’s to really watch all of these wonderful classes we’ve bought, and really get the most from them; you know – do the projects, make the wonderful makes, and not just have a lovely Craftsy class collection (as wonderful as that would be on its own). Is there anyone else out there who has classes they haven’t watched yet? I’m so guilty, but don’t tell my hubby!

So, for our first review we’re covering Design & Sew an A-Line Skirt, which was one of my first Craftsy classes.

Of all the classes I’ve taken on Craftsy, this will probably be the hardest one for me to review. The reason for that is I’d like to just say great things about this class, or any class. It’s a little harder for this class to do that. Here are my first thoughts on the class from a couple of years ago. And here are a few more thoughts from that time.

However, I like to focus on positives, so I’ll share some really good things about the class now. Let’s cover those first.

One thing I like about this class.

One of the things I really like about this class is it taught me to put in an invisible zipper for the first time. I’d avoided them until this point. A regular zipper was fine, but I had been too intimidated to even try an invisible one. Just the name itself had scared me off.

Deborah’s instructions were very clear on how to install the zipper and I had no trouble. Her instructions were great really.

Here’s an old photo showing the zipper. (Sorry for these terrible photos – I was having camera trouble back then.)

That zipper is about as perfect as a zipper can get. That’s a great aspect to the class.

I made a skirt that fit.

I did finish my skirt. That’s another positive for the class. Not only did I finish the skirt, but it fit as well. Here’s another (terrible) old photo.

A personal dislike.

The skirt we make in this class sits a couple of inches below the natural waist, and I don’t love that. That’s simply a style preference.

Positive reviews with cautions.

This class is rated for beginners. It has reviews from 87 people and they have given it a 4.5 out of 5 stars. That’s pretty positive. However, there are comments in those reviews questioning whether this is really a class for beginners.

Maybe not for beginners.

The reason reviewers are saying this class isn’t for beginners is this instructor wasn’t answering questions. The fact that so many don’t receive answers makes me think this class might be better suited to someone with more sewing experience.

I had the experience of not having my questions answered when I ran into a bit of trouble. With this class, I made my first sloper. I’d had no previous experience with slopers.

Here’s a screen shot from the Craftsy class showing Deborah squaring up the pattern she’s making. This was the first area where I had trouble – ‘squaring up’.

My sloper was so curvy (like me) that squaring it was rather hard. I asked my question and didn’t receive an answer. I decided to simply move ahead even though my sloper wasn’t perfectly squared up. I did run into more trouble, and again didn’t have an answer to my question.

I contacted Craftsy about not getting answers.

Craftsy customer service.

Have any of you had any experience in dealing with Craftsy when a problem comes up? Craftsy is great! They have phenomenal customer service, and they came through for me with my unanswered questions.

When I emailed Craftsy with my frustrations over not having my questions answered, Craftsy checked and confirmed I did in fact have unanswered questions. Then made things right for me. That made me a happier customer. I still didn’t have answers to my questions though, which left a bit of a negative feeling about the class. That’s why this class review is a bit of a struggle. I have some negative feelings about this class.

However, to be fair, there are a few really great aspects to this class. So again, let’s focus on these:

• I drafted and made a skirt that fit me.
• I installed my first invisible zipper (and it looks great)!
• There are a lot of positive reviews for the class.
• With this class you make a modern A-Line skirt.

I think if you’re a competent sewer, there would be a lot you could learn from this class. So despite a bit of a negative experience, I, along with many of the other class reviewers, will recommend this class with a caution – it’s not for beginners.

I will let you know, we decided to start with our reviews but are taking December off. We’ll pick this up again in January. So no review in December.

Happy creating!