Slow Fashion 2017 with Cal Patch, Katrina Rodabaugh, & Jessica Lewis Stevens

Sunday afternoon, July 23rd through Friday mid-day, July 28th

Ferry Beach Park Association, Saco, Maine

$875

A small group of just thirty stitchers will spend five days in exploration of ways to make your wardrobe ethical, sustainable, handmade, and beautiful! We will do all this with the expansive beauty of one of Maine's pristine beaches as our backdrop, and inspiration....

As of 7/10 there are still five (5) spots available in Slow Fashion. Housing options at Ferry Beach are filling up, so register now if you want to join us!

Let's hit the pause button, and see what we can learn about Slow Fashion.  Maine is a beautiful place to turn down the volume, shut off the email, leave the phone in your room, and spend some time exploring this relevant movement.  Join this group of three world class makers: Cal Patch, Katrina Rodobaugh, and Jessica Lewis Stevens to learn ways to make your garments both beautiful and ethical, and an expression of your beliefs

As with the blissful Slow Stitching retreats I have produced for the past two years, the format for this retreat focuses on slowing down your practice to absorb the joy and beauty of Making with your own two hands. Cal, Katrina, and Jessica will open their hearts and their tool boxes to share their knowledge and skills for creating a handmade wardrobe you can be proud of. We will all stay at the Ferry Beach Park location which is literally Right. On. The. Beach. The rooms are rustic and homey, the sound and smell of the ocean ever present. The food is simple but nourishing. You might forget when in time we are. This is a location that transports you back to the Summer Holidays by the beach of our collective childhood.  Each day you will spend with one of our three Makers.

~Cal will teach you how to draft a pattern for a simple woven top that can easily be customized in myriad ways. This is a perfect intro to pattern-drafting if you’ve been wanting to dip your toe in the water, and the sewing couldn’t be simpler. Sewing your own clothes is satisfying and practical. Drafting your own patterns goes one step further and puts the entire design process in your hands.  In your time with Cal, you’ll begin by drafting the basic pattern to your measurements, then cut + sew a quick muslin (fit sample) to check fit, and tweak the pattern if necessary. Next you’ll either continue by turning your sample into a "wearable muslin", or cut a new one, perhaps adding extra seams or pockets. Beginner stitchers will keep it fairly simple, and those with more advanced skills can customize to their hearts’ content. Everyone will leave with a shirt that reflects their personality and reminds them of this inspiring week in Maine!  This basic t-shirt shape makes a lovely “blank canvas” pattern to use as a foundation for all sorts of techniques: piecing, quilting, embroidering, dyeing, eco-printing… and of course you can combine and layer the treatments to create the most special garments.  We all have fat quarters or other smallish cuts of precious fabrics, too small to use for garments - until now! You can play around with different seam placements and piece together smaller scraps of fabric, placing some of those treasured morsels front and center. You might even incorporate some of your dyed or stitched samples from this week into your project.

~ Katrina will share her prodigious resources, leading the group through some of the most direct ways to participate in slow fashion through mending and repairing the garments we already own. By keeping our garments in good condition we extend their usefulness, postpone their fate in a landfill, and also better understand the value of hand-stitching and the required skill to make or repair garments. Furthermore, mending makes our wardrobe more fashionable and more meaningful. Not only is our mending useful but with a few simple textile art techniques and thoughtful design it can be quite beautiful too.   Sashiko is a traditional Japanese stitching technique that lends itself beautifully to contemporary crafts. Sashiko is the perfect stitch to mend existing garments or to create beautiful new textiles. Katrina will lead the group in a discussion of traditional techniques like Boro, Sashiko, Kantha, embroidery, and quilting and their modern applications in Visible Mending and Slow Fashion.  You’ll also consider “mendfulness” or applying mindfulness to fashion and the creative opportunity in repair.

Katrina will start you off making a Sashiko-inspired potholder as a design project while sharing various resources for continuing beyond the classroom. After lunch you will utilize your new Sashiko and Boro techniques to mend an existing garment with the Katrina’s help. You will leave the workshop with a potholder, mended garment(s), various resources, an introduction to Mendfulness, and greater stitching confidence and skill.

~Focusing on foraged and locally accessible dyes native to the Northeast, Jessica will cover all of the basics of the natural dyeing process. Here is your chance to see what others are talking about. You will work together to extract and modify a range of colors for several types of fibers including cotton, linen, silk, and wool. You will explore and discuss what makes a plant or mineral suitable for dyeing, how to prepare and mordant your fibers, and how to combine dyes for endless color possibilities. She will also cover techniques such as solar dyeing and how to prepare a fermented indigo vat, and you'll have a chance to experiment with creating Shibori patterns in a prepared vat. You will be provided with a list of resources for sourcing your own natural dye supplies, as well as a guide to dye plants and materials that can be found through the seasons.

So, you see, there is much to be learned, and we will give you the time you need to absorb it all.  Each day will be spent with Cal, Katrina, or Jessica, learning their techniques and tips, and practicing new skills-or sharpening old ones. You will spend a day with each teacher, with plenty of time for inspirational wanderings.  The fourth day will be open to exploration. You will have the option to play with any or all of the techniques you have learned, with the guidance of Cal, Katrina, and Jessica. Or if you prefer, you can go for a swim, take a hike, do some stitching, some reading, or whatever your heart desires.  The focus will be on slowing down, taking time, connecting to your practice, the community, and your inner voice. Evenings will be open for more stitching, star gazing, walks on the beach, making new friends, communing with old ones, and anything else you might like to do by the beach, in Maine, in July....

In order to give you plenty of time to check, and double check, your schedule, and confer with partners, bosses, children, parents, and pets, to make sure this will work for you, I am delaying the opening of registration until March 3rd. I will announce the opening of registration with an email. So if you are not on the newsletter email list, sign up now! The link is at the bottom of the home page.

Registration is now open! You can click on THIS link to be taken directly to the form.....!