My Sewing Summit Experience: Part Two + Giveaway!
Saturday Morning
For the first session, I hopped into the Website Design class with Melissa. She had a lot of great tips for how to re-design your blog, including fonts, headers and icons. Overall, I was a little distracted, because I was about to teach my class during the next session. I ducked out a little early to scope out my classroom and get set up.
My Creative Journey session was next on the agenda, and I’d received the class list ahead of time. So I was happy to know my first teaching experience would be with a small-ish group of 12 attendees. Instead of serving up the class lecture-style, my friends in the helped me rearrange the chairs into a circle so we could all see each other and just talk.
Sara snapped this pic of me during the class. After all the nerves in the weeks leading up to Sewing Summit, I wasn’t nervous at all during the class! It felt just like talking to my friends at home, and everyone was really receptive and participated in the discussion. I had the most fun listening to everyone tell me “what they want to be when they grow up.” Hah!
What did I talk about? Blogging, craft book publishing, and how to press forward when you face resistance. One of the themes of my story is how to move on when you face rejection. As I’ve learned, “no” doesn’t mean “no” forever, and you can expect some crazy ups and downs along the way.
As a surprise, I brought everyone in the class some swag: they each got to pick from cutting tools, fabric, craft books or T-shirts (thanks CraftFoxes)!
Lunch with Joel Dewberry
After my class, I stopped and chatted with some new friends, and we all showed up late to lunch. I’m glad we weren’t too late, because Joel Dewberry was speaking!
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| Photo: Flickr/nydiakehnle |
Saturday Afternoon
After lunch, I headed to my next session, which was Successful Blogging with Tauni. She was fun and engaging as a speaker, and had some great advice for bloggers, and I found it especially interesting when she shared that her most popular posts are guests posts and craft fails! She talked a lot about being honest in your blog and finding your own voice, which I’d love to grow in.
My last class of Sewing Summit was Sara‘s Advanced Bags class! The room was packed out, and she brought lots and lots of her purses (most of them are free patterns on her blog) and answered questions about purse feet, zippers, interfacing and more. Everyone in the class got samples of Pellon interfacing to use for reference, which I predict will be super helpful.
The keynote speaker at Saturday night’s closing dinner was Nancy Soriano, the former editor of Country Living magazine, former publishing director of F+W Media and founder of The Creative Connection event. Her talk was geared toward people in publishing or the creative professional category, so it was right up my alley.
I felt like her words echoed some of the things I’ve learned and shared about in my own Creative Journey session. No matter how far along in your journey, it’s funny how we all face the same themes and life lessons! I really resonated with her advice to not back out of uncomfortable situations, or let fear keep you from stepping out into your creative passion. If I can claim even a fraction of Nancy’s accomplishments someday, I’ll be a happy woman. So inspiring!
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| Photo: Swim, Bike, Quilt |
Day 3
After Saturday night’s dinner, I went to the room and packed for my flight. I booked a red-eye to Baltimore for my friend Rachael’s wedding. Oh, yes I did.
I was tired and squinty, running on about 2 hours of sleep, but it was so worth it to get this picture with my amazing friends!
Day 4 and 4,848 miles later . . .
After the wedding, my husband (who met me in Baltimore) and I headed to the airport for our flight home. I wasn’t sure how I would get all of my Sewing Summit swag and awesome roommate gifts in my luggage, but it all fit just like magic! As it turns out, this is what fell out of my suitcase back home.
Giveaway #1: Leave a comment below, and I’ll choose one random winner to send some of my extra swag. The contents will be a surprise! I’d love to hear what you love most about the sewing community.
Giveaway #2: In honor of our bounty of goodness, my friend Rachael and I are hosting a little Sewing Summit giveaway over at CraftFoxes! Head over there to enter. Both giveaways close 10/22
