We expect ticket sales to go fast, like last year (remember how we sold out in a matter of hours?!) and we are capping ticket sales again this year at around 250. But before you buy your ticket, you should know that the class allocation & sign up process has been changed: After our final agenda has been released, each attendees schedule will be randomly assigned based from a priority list you’ll send us. We took lots of time to read through the feedback from last year and discussed as a team what we could do to make the class sign up process go smoother & be fairer for a larger number of people. Read more about the enrollment process here.

And we’re excited to announce our first group of Sewing Summit 2013 speakers & teachers! We’re thrilled to welcome back some familiar faces as well as add some new people to the mix. The line up of classes we have this year is amazing (smocking?! hand printing fabric?!) – again we took many suggestions from our attendees as well as our various social media sites. See the Sewing Summit 2013 teachers here, and keep watch as we’ll continue to update it as we announce more names!

If you’re still debating throwing your hat into the ring & applying to be a Sewing Summit teacher – do it! You can find the application here & it’s open for a few more days – until Thursday, April 11th, at midnight MST. We’ve been giving out teaching spots as applications come it, but we have saved a few spots for last minute applicants.

Hope to see you in September!

Tickets will go on sale April 16th, 2013, at 10:00 am MST. Tickets for Sewing Summit 2013 are $325 and will include the opening welcome mixer, two lunches, one dinner, a VIP swag bag & a personalized schedule of both lecture style & hands-on sewing classes. We DO expect to sell out again quickly – last year we sold out the first day tickets went on sale – so keep that in mind when planning on when to purchase your ticket.

Do you want to be a Sewing Summit teacher? We’re excited to issue a call for lecture speakers and hands-on class teachers for Sewing Summit 2013.

This year we’re looking for very specific panel suggestions and hands-on class ideas. Class sessions are either 1 hour 15 minutes or 2 hours. Please keep that in mind when submitting ideas and proposals. All proposals should fall under one of the following tracks: quilting, garment sewing, accessory sewing (bags, home decor, softies) hand stitching, or professional tools (social media, photography, blogging, design, etc).

Speaker applications will be accepted until April 11th, 2013 at midnight MST. Staff will begin reviewing speaker submissions & sending out invitations to join our teaching team immediately. Check out the Speaker Application page for more detailed information. We’re always looking for new ideas & fresh faces for our teaching team!

We hope we’ll see you in September!

(Please link to your direct post URL only, not your general blog URL. If you write more than one SS12 recap post feel free to link them all separately! Thanks to PinkSuedeShoe for the picture of LeedleDeedles quilt!)

If you haven’t heard of Craftsy, they’re a super fun & exciting online class hub, pattern marketplace, project sharing site, and so much more. For one, they’re a huge community – they have over a million registered users across the world. Secondly, they offer the most amazing range of classes (can we say cake decorating? Not to mention sewing, quilting, knitting – with other great things to come!). And they’re affordable!

We think that Craftsy is a perfect partner for us, because while we are excited to have expanded the hands-on sewing sessions at Sewing Summit this year, our classes are bite-sized and definitely more of a high-level overview type deal than super in-depth and detailed. Sewing Summit wanted to offer you a lot of different intro’s to different ideas & skills, and then have you practice & perfect them at home. And we think that taking some of the Craftsy classes at home is the perfect thing to help you with that! (Ahem – all you attendees might be getting a free Craftsy class in your swag to try them out yourself – we’re just sayin!)

So make sure to come by sometime during the opening mixer on Thursday night – 5:00-6:30 in Ballroom C – it’s a casual, drop in anytime type thing, so don’t worry if you’re out later shopping or want to hang out in your hotel room with your friends!

Then Lisa Anne, Lyric & Susanne from Craftsy will be on hand the whole weekend & they want to talk to you! They’ve got a great blogger outreach program & they want to hear what they can do for YOU! Affiliate programs, sponsorships for your blog, prizes for your giveaways – they want to hear what they can do for you. If you’re attending Sewing Summit, they’ll be hanging out at their table in the sponsor area during Open Sewing at night, and then they’re also hosting a Salt Lake City blogger get together on Sunday morning for anyone in the SLC area that wants to attend. Here’s the invite & more info for that get together!

Make sure you connect with Craftsy on Twitter (@beCraftsy) or Facebook here! Let them know how excited you are to have them involved!

Make sure to use the #SewingSummit hashtag as well as the hashtag of the day for all your Sewing Summit prep & travel pictures this week so we can follow along! If you’re not traveling on Wednesday or packing on Tuesday, use the hashtags whenever they apply to you – it’s all in good fun!

Feel free to grab this image to post on your own Instagram feeds to help spread the word! You can also navigate to this page on your phone & then take a screenshot to upload in IG!

If you’re not on Instagram (it’s a free app available for both Android and iPhones!) feel free to tweet, Facebook or otherwise post your pictures online & upload them to our Sewing Summit 2012 Flickr group!

We’ll see you in a few days!

Have you heard of Sew iT All magazine before? I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know the Editor In Chief, Ellen March, a little bit over the past few months, as well as her fantastic magazine. If you haven’t seen it before, I think this snippet from their website bio explains it perfectly:

With its pattern-free projects and stress-free approach, Sew iT All encourages readers to break the rules and deviate from the norm to discover techniques, tools and shortcuts that make sewing easier, faster and more fun.

Doesn’t that sound perfect? I have seen a few editions of the magazine in person, and I can tell you that it’s gorgeously put together, and the projects are super approachable & do-able. We all are busy with our hands in lots of different projects these days, but if you have ever thought about submitting your tutorials or ideas for publication in a magazine before, this might just be the chance for you!

Sewing Summit has partnered with Sew iT All magazine to offer an exclusive contest & editorial call just for Sewing Summit attendees. We are giving attendees a very rare chance to talk to a magazine editor in person (Ellen will be attending Sewing Summit!) and submit your garment, home dec & accessory projects for consideration into publication into the December 2013 issue!

When conceiving your proposal, think about current fashion and sewing trends, specialty techniques or tools that make the sewing process easier, potential additional sidebars that give extra information, and more that may add to the proposal.

We’ll be selecting multiple participants to have their project published, and selected contributers will be paid between $100-$300 per project, depending on complexity. As a featured contributor, you’ll appear on our “Experts” page, where you’ll have the opportunity to mention your blog, books, products and anything else you’d like to promote. Once the issue is published, you’ll be invited to write a guest blog post to promote your project (and blog) on the Sew News/Sew it All blog, which will also be promoted on our social media pages.

I am super excited to be able to offer this to attendees of Sewing Summit 2012, if you’ve been wanting to be published this is a great opportunity! Put your thinking caps on about what possible projects you might want to submit. You can download a .pdf of the full contest rules & more information here.

The Weather

Fall in Utah this year has been gorgeous- I’m hoping the trees are still in full color next weekend. Currently, the weather forecast is mild -highs in the high sixties and low seventies and lows in the high thirties and low forties. (Which of course means that people coming from warm places are going to freeze, and those coming from cooler places are going to laugh). Make sure to check the weather before you leave, (we like weather.com), as I’m sure it will change a few times. I would recommend bringing a light coat (and a scarf and gloves if you are a weather wimp like me), and a sweater for the hotel.  Hotel conference rooms are always on the chilly side. Layers are key!

What to pack? Sewing Stuff:

Thanks to our amazing sponsors, we will have Sewing Summit 2012 stocked to the brim with great supplies & notions (BabyLock machines, Madeira thread, OLFA cutting mats & rotary cutters, etc) so that you don’t HAVE to bring anything. That said, if you have a pair of scissors you super-duper love or want to pack your own little sewing emergency kit of a seam ripper, fabric marker & snips, please feel free to. It might make it easier in the sewing rooms during some of the more notion-heavy times in class. A personal sized cutting mat, if you have one, might be a good idea as there won’t be one at every sewing machine space. Also make sure to bring whatever supplies are asked for from your teacher for the classes you are taking (mostly fabric requirements, noted on the .pdf here).

What about projects to work on? Honestly, I bet you won’t get as much done as you think you will, because you’ll be having too much fun chatting & hanging out with your new friends. That said, a hand-sewing/knitting/cross stitch project if you have one might be fun, as there will be others sitting around that would love seeing what you’re working on. Also, if you want to bring your sewing machines, you absolutely can, but there will be limited space to set them up as we’ve expanded the number of sponsored machines this year. Also, an extension cord would be handy to have just in case you need to stretch to a plug!

What to pack? Clothing:

This might seem obvious, but bring what you are most comfortable wearing. For some people, that will be jeans, a t-shirt, a sweater and flats (um, that’s me). For others, it will be handmade clothing, awesome refashions, or on-trend ensembles. Be sure to pack something comfortable for late night sewing & hanging out–this may be the perfect time to wear the new lounge pants or maxi skirt you made in class! There is a gym onsite, as well as a pool and hot tub, so pack accordingly if you plan to use either. We are a comfortable & laid back group!

What to pack? Miscellaneous:

Your airline ticket. Drivers license. Cash & credit card. Transportation details to & from airport (We recommend making a reservation with Express Shuttle or grabbing a cab). Phone/charger. Camera/charger. Notebook to jot down ideas/notes/blog addresses. Something to keep business cards in. Your handmade nametag, if you made one. And don’t forget your glasses! See you soon.

Hi there! We wanted to take a moment today to wrap up our Travel Handmade series!  It was a very busy month! As usual, the teachers, staff, and attendees that participated have defied all expectations! So much wonderful crafting going on!

That is the entire point of this series.  It’s not about who can travel the MOST handmade, it’s simply about encouraging everyone to get behind their sewing machines and create.  We so often make time to create things for others, while forgetting to make things for ourselves to use! We hope this series left you feeling inspired! Didn’t have time to make anything? That’s okay! This series, our Pinterest boards, and the Travel Handmade flickr group will be here for you if you ever get the itch to sew up a bag or travel accessory!

So, let’s take a quick recap of this month!

The series started off with a week of bag making basics round-ups! Interfacing 101, Zippers 101, and Purse Hardware 101.

The next three weeks had us hopping all over blog land visiting with different teachers, staff members, and attendees.  There were pattern reviews, tutorials, peeks into sewing bags and a look at some travel outfits!

Image by Anna Graham, Toothbrush Case Tutorial.

We stopped in with many talented bloggers on our hop: Katy Jones, Sewing Summit, Vanessa Hewell, Jeni Baker, Ali Winston, Shelia Mathies, Katie Blakesley, Heather Scrimsher, Christina Lane, Kati Spencer, Anna Graham, Emily Herrick, Deborah Moebes, and Melissa Esplin!

The Travel Handmade ideas Pinterest board that was started at the beginning of the month now has over 700 pins, most of which are tutorials and patterns!

Finally, we are loving seeing your projects popping up in the Travel Handmade Flickr Group, which are being pinned (if possible!), to a special Pinterest board for attendee projects!

You can find even more fantastic attendee projects using the hash tag #travelhandmade on Twitter and Instagram! We hope you’ll continue to share (and tag) your beautiful projects and progress! (Don’t have Instagram? You can view all the #travelhandmade photos online, here!)

A huge thank you to our fantastic blog hoppers, the Sewing Summit staff, and all of you, for making this event great! See you soon!

For those of you that know of Joel I’m sure you’re just as excited as we are to have the chance to hear from him in person, and for those of you that don’t know of him yet, let me fill you in on just why we love Mr. Dewberry so much!

Joel grew up in a home where he was introduced early to the joy of expressing his creativity through a variety of artistic mediums. His mother, a renowned artist herself, nurtured his natural inclination toward the arts, and along with his father, encouraged him in finding his passion and developing it into his life’s work. In 2000, Joel graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Graphic Design from Brigham Young University. During his studies there he cultivated an appreciation and love of all things tactile. His attention to detail, quality craftsmanship and respect for design antiquity poised him as an outstanding talent among his peers. After acquiring more than 10 years of brand development experience in a wide variety of industries, including the home and textile market, Joel realized his ultimate reward by launching his own textiles brand, Joel Dewberry Eclectic Modern in May 2007.

(photo credit)

You probably know Joel best by his gorgeous fabric lines. Aviary, Deer Valley & Heirloom are some of the most beloved & collected lines among sewists today. His designs are a reflection of the way he sees life, valuing the classic beauty that never goes out of style, but always open to a fresh and modern reinterpretation. Joel’s work is about the satisfaction derived from adding a personal touch to a project, a room, an event and embellishing life in a way that leaves your mark.

We are very excited to get the chance to hear Joel speak about his personal Creative Journey and gain insight to where he gets his inspiration for his fabulous fabric & pattern designs, including his new line with Westminster Fabrics, Notting Hill, due to stores in November. He’ll also be taking questions from the Sewing Summit community via our Twitter & Facebook accounts, so watch for the call for questions for him there – he might answer yours!

Happy Friday! This is our last stop on Travel Handmade blog hop! This month, we’ve been hopping all over blog land to check out what everyone is making to travel handmade to Sewing Summit!

Today we’re stopping in with Melissa Esplin of I Still Love You. Melissa is teaching the Website Design class at this year’s event! She is sharing with us her travel essentials outfit! And a quick run-down of the handmade top she’s wearing!

So, head on over to Melissa’s blog to see her project!

Check back this weekend for a final wrap-up post!