The second Sewing Weekender, sewing holiday, took place at the start of August. As is always the way with organising events, when we started planning it seemed ages away, but it was here before we knew it and over in a flash.
Kate, Rachel & I arrived at our venue, Murray Edwards College in Cambridge, on Friday afternoon and were kept busy until the evening setting up sewing machines, overlockers, and irons, stuffing goodie bags, and inflating balloons!
We were joined on Saturday morning by fifty-one attendees and six prefects/speakers, for the sewing (tea drinking, fabric stroking, nattering, fabric swapping) to commence.
Over the course of the Weekender we had:
♥ Two embroidery workshops (hand-embroidery with Elisalex de Castro Peake, and machine embroidery with Elle Harris).
♥ More time for sewing, more machines, overlockers and irons than at last year’s event.
♥ Even more sponsors & overflowing goodie bags.
♥ Embroidered badges for every attendee (thanks to Elle Harris‘ machine embroidery workshop).
♥ A mini sewing bee! Elizabeth and Susan both finished a garment during the weekend, so were set a timed challenge by Melissa and Fiona, using supplies from the swap – and completed that too!
♥ Inspirational talks from our amazing prefects/speakers.
♥ Two lovely golden ticket competition winners, Barbara and Vicky thanks to Sew Now Magazine and Minerva Crafts.
♥ Two sewists wearing the same fabric (Rachel and Emily)!
♥ A litter of of cat owners – mostly sporting cat prints (Rachel, Sarah, Bianca, Amy, Harriet, Elena, & Melissa).
♥ Speedy sewists who managed to complete garments during the weekend, including Elizabeth and Emma.
♥ A stroll through Cambridge in the sun (as well as one particular lunch break in torrential rain…).
♥ And lots of lovely sewists!
There’s a great atmosphere at the Weekender, and it’s the same atmosphere at sewing meet-ups small and large (as well as online): welcoming, inspiring and full of fun. Assuming people do keep wanting to come, there’s never going to be enough tickets for everyone to attend the Sewing Weekender (this year tickets sold out in less than twenty minutes), but I’d highly recommend getting to a meet-up in person as often as you can.