Monday, September 30, 2013

Sewing Summit 2013 Recap

I returned from Sewing Summit last week and it was a blast! If I were to describe the experience in three words they would be: pleasantly overwhelming, inspiring, and exciting! Pleasantly overwhelming because of the 300 or so skilled attendees/instructors whom I had to introduce myself to and how much there is to learn about everything sewing, inspiring because of all the cool projects everyone was working on, and exciting because of how big the sewing community is and to be part of it! 

Because I was a Sewing Summit newbie, here's what I'd suggest for the first-timer going.
Sewing Summit Newbie Tips:
  • Step out of your comfort zone and introduce yourself! This was probably the most "overwhelming" aspect of the event. Many of the attendees already knew each other and were busy chatting away, so it took some courage to go up to people and introduce myself, but it's worth it! The next point in this list may help with this as well.
  • Do some prep work of who's going. Start to look at the blogs of the class instructors and of some of the other attendees so that when you get to meet them in person, you'll know a bit about them and maybe get to expand on common interests. 
  • Make business cards! This seemed to be common knowledge as everyone would swap business cards with either their contact information or their blog site upon introducing themselves. I didn't have one and wished I did! See some of the cool ones I received below!   
  • If you want to buy fabric, be sure to sign up for Shop Hop! You can sign up online beforehand for a spot on the shop hop bus tour of some cool fabric stores. I thought there would be other opportunities to go fabric shopping, but I did not have a car and there were not many fabric stores walking distance from the hotel or ones that were open after our classes. That was probably better for my wallet though! 


Here are some pictures from the conference! (I've linked some names so you can check out their blogs too!)
Erin Singleton, founder of Sewing Summit, giving an introduction during one of our lunches

Olivia Omega in her lovely hand sewn superheroes skirt teaching about personal branding
Me and Olivia
What a cool opportunity to work with these super high tech Bernina machines! Some of these machines were worth more than $8,000! One of the coolest features was the metal rod that you see extending from the bottom of the machine; you press against that with your leg to move the presser foot up and down so that you can use both hands to adjust your fabric instead of having to use one hand to lift the presser foot. 

Every evening we had "open sew", which is much like open gym, where we had access to the two Bernina sewing rooms until 1 AM to work on any sewing projects we wanted. It was pure crafting madness! 
The metal framed pouch, taught by Elena, was surprisingly easy to sew and cute! Love Melissa's pouch too! 
Meeting some crafty folks at lunch! 
Sunni Standing teaching the Fitting Patterns class. Here, she's showing us a trick to do self measurements using a ribbon and a measuring tape. She's also the instructor of "Mastering Zipper Techniques" on Craftsy! 
My "Before" and "After" photo of a men's oversized polo shirt turned into a fitted women's shirt; class taught by Merrick
Me and Merrick. Love her style! 

At Gracie's for the mixer. That's Heather Bailey in the back! She was the keynote speaker and gave such an entertaining and inspirational speech about her sewing journey, the fabric industry, and life! My favorite quote from her was, "excitement is delicious". Isn't that great?  

During my off time, I got to sightsee a bit of Salt Lake City, at least the downtown area that was walking distance from the hotel. It was pretty easy to navigate as SLC is organized on a grid layout with all the streets named for their directional distance from the Temple (e.g., 100 South, 200 East). Other things to note, their sidewalk blocks are huge and nothing is really open on Sundays! 

Beautiful mountains surrounding the city


Temple Square sits at the center of Salt Lake City and is the #1 tourist attraction in Utah. The buildings above are the Assembly Hall and the Salt Lake Temple.
I attended the live broadcast of "Music and the Spoken Word" performed by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir!


3 comments:

  1. I wish I could have made it to the post mixer too! Glad you were able to see the city a little and I'm glad we met! Your refashion looks awesome!

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  2. Good tips! I would definitely be overwhelmed by all the awesomeness too.
    Saving up for a Bernina now?

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