Slow Fashion August
(SOLD OUT)
August 5-11, 2024
MEDOMAK RETREAT CENTER, WASHINGTON, MAINE
with Stacey Taylor, Rae Hoekstra & Jessica Marquez
A small group of just thirty-six Makers will spend five full days in exploration of line, color, and stitch at a contemplative pace. Surrounded by the woods, on the edge of a lake, with the rustic beauty and charm of Maine as the backdrop. Small groups, individual pacing, natural inspiration-this will be a week for unwinding and exploring....
Hey Guys, you are amazing….and this one is TOTALLY SOLD OUT… There is a waiting list, email me if you want to be on it!
We successfully gathered the last three years, with care and consideration despite Covid. We intend to do the same this year.
I continue to take Covid seriously. All possible precautions will be observed. Up-to-date vaccines are required for participation. Testing will be required upon arrival. There are protocols for the possibility of a case at Camp. Those will be shared with each group in advance of gathering.
Are you seeking the time and space to slow down and connect with your skills, your agency, your creative practice? In these challenging chaotic, isolating ‘post’ pandemic days, we crave connection and community with other Makers. Maine is a good place to retreat, step back from the daily pace, and spend some time in community with needle, thread, and cloth. This August, I invite you to join Stacey Taylor, Rae Hoekstra, and Jessica Marquez to make that time and space for yourself.
Join Stacey, Rae, Jessica, and I at the Medomak Retreat Center in Washington, ME where you can relax, unwind, and dive into your stitching practice. You will sleep in a modern yet rustic cabin, eat three meals a day with the community, and spend as much time as you like with cloth, needle, and thread. Each day will be spent with Stacey, Rae, or Jessica, learning their techniques and tips, practicing new skills or sharpening old ones. In addition there are two days of time for musings, wanderings, exploration, and epiphany, both of the textile and human variety. The emphasis here is on settling into your Making practice and letting the rest of it float away....
~Stacey will lead you through the 5 steps of Ruth Collins’ Top Down Center Out method for pants fitting. This workshop will focus on understanding the unique philosophies behind this fitting method, including how it differs from conventional fitting approaches, and why those differences matter for how we perceive ourselves and our bodies as we fit. Stacey will offer individual coaching as you construct and fit your own toile, and she will discuss strategies for making fitting decisions and setting yourself up for success. Stacey will also show examples of how the method can be applied to different types of designs like jeans or leggings, and she will share troubleshooting tips and tricks. You will come away from the workshop with a new framework for understanding how pants fit the body and a skillset for how to customize any design to fit you.
~Jessica is returning with her successful new workshop from last year: Refashion Your Clothes. Refashioning is all about imaging the possibilities of our textiles. Let's alter our thrifted, handmade, vintage, and unused clothes to make them something different, something that fits our body and style better. These revisions can be simple to complex, from hemming, changing a neckline, adding or removing parts of the garment, including patchwork or altogether scrapping it into something completely different. Who knows where the inspiration will take you! Class begins by looking at a variety of sample garments, then sharing your own garments to discuss the possible creative approaches. It's an amazing experience to be in a room full of creative sewists eager to encourage and offer up unique solutions to unique dilemmas. There's no one right way and each refashioning is a fun experience to puzzle out. After demos, you will work in community on your individual projects and share your progress at the end of class. In this workshop you will explore several techniques to rework and re-imagine your textiles including, hand stitching, mending, machine sewing, and even block printing.
~Rae is joining us for the first time this year to teach a workshop on Creating Pieced Apparel Fabric from Scraps! In this workshop you will learn how to create fabric for apparel from scraps. Give those beloved scraps you've been saving from prior garment projects or no-longer-wearable clothing another life by creating a unique new fabric full of beauty, love, and memories. Rae will walk you through the process from scraps to layout to new fabric to new garment, including narrowing down fabric and color combinations, suggestions for how to cut up your scraps, and tips and techniques for piecing them together and introducing classic quilting motifs. If time allows we'll use the new fabric you've created and a sewing pattern to cut out pieces and begin to sew together a unique, beautiful new garment with the fabric you've made.
Bring along your pile of favorite scraps from prior garment projects (we can help you out if you don't have any, don't worry!) and a simple garment pattern to use as a template for your pieced fabric - you can choose one of Rae's patterns to use, such as Ruby or Cleo, or use one from your own pattern library. Rae recommends choosing one that is fairly basic - to keep things simple and stress-free and increase the probability that you will be able to finish it during the retreat - and one with large, uninterrupted pieces that will showcase your scrappy fabric well.
You will spend a day with each teacher, with plenty of time for inspirational wanderings. Two back-to-back, then a break. On the third day we will take a small field trip to the coast and a fabulous local fabric store. Or if you prefer, you can go for a swim, take a hike, do some stitching, some reading, or whatever your heart desires. The last day of instruction on Friday. Then Saturday is entirely for you to do with as you please. Check in with one of the instructors on a technique you need clarification on, take a nap, sew up another muslin, the day is yours!
We will have a clothing swap, so bring any and all wearable items that no longer sing to you, and watch them leave with another, while perhaps bringing something new and thoughtful into your closet. If you don’t have garments to swap, yardage and patterns are always welcome! The swap nights are always tons of fun! We will also have an evening for Garment Stories. Bring a beloved item of clothing that has a story behind it. We will share our stories and our thoughts about the lives of our garments. This evening is always engaging. Our garments hold so many untold stories and memories, it is fascinating to hear them. So much emotion, so much history, culture, identity in our closets. Let’s share our stories.
The primary focus for the week will be on slowing down, taking time, connecting to your practice, the community, and your inner voice. Evenings will be open for more stitching, conversing, knitting, star gazing, cricket concerts, Loon appreciation, and anything else you might like to do in Maine in August....
Stacey Taylor
Stacey is a scientist, educator, and life-long sewist. She grew up in a family of eccentric makers, and her mother taught her how to sew at age 10. As a young sewist, Stacey kept a sketchbook of outfit ideas and proudly wore her self-drafted creations to school every day.
Today, Stacey’s sewing practice is rooted in her background as a scientist; she has a Ph.D. in cancer biology and her research spans oncology, genetics, and neuroscience. Her work has taught her to be a close observer of detail and a determined problem solver, both in the lab and at the sewing machine.
As a sewist, Stacey enjoys the fitting process and the many approaches for turning a 2D shape into a 3D garment. Stacey spent several years as a student of the Top Down Center Out method and has collaborated closely with its creator, Ruth Collins, to develop a variety of fitting resources for home sewists.
As an educator, Stacey has created over a dozen courses and hundreds of class modules for all ages. She loves teaching and finding new ways to engage with students, either in-person or online. In her latest project, she filmed a popular Youtube video series demonstrating the fundamentals of the Top Down Center Out fitting method.
Jessica Marquez
Jessica is a life long maker who found her way back to textiles while working on an MFA in Photography from Rochester Institute of Technology. After countless hours working digitally, retouching images and staring at a computer screen she longed for hands-on analog making. She taught herself embroidery and then never stopped stitching. In 2008 she started a creative handmade business, Miniature Rhino, named after a young cousin's imaginary friend, a dentist she called Dr. Rhino. Miniature Rhino became a symbol of creativity and imagination and seeks to inspire and teach hands-on skills through a line of embroidery kits, patterns, classes and books. She's taught through out the country, internationally and online through Craftsy classes in embroidery and photography. Her work has been featured in publications including, Grace Bonney's bestselling book, In the Company of Women, Real Simple, Bust, Country Living, and InStyle magazine. She's written two books Make and Mend (Ten Speed, 2018) and Stitched Gifts (Chronicle, 2012), and a regular contributor to online and print publications such as Mollie Makes and Design*Sponge.
Rae Hoekstra
Rae Hoekstra is a sewing pattern designer and instructor. She learned to sew from her mother at a young age and has loved sewing ever since. A lifelong interest in fiber arts -- including garment sewing, quilting, knitting, and crochet -- led her to start a blog, Made by Rae, shortly after leaving her job as a high school physics teacher to stay home with her first child. Her blog became popular spot for DIY and sewing tutorials. Rae designs sewing patterns for the home sewist with a focus on making garment sewing approachable for the confident beginner. She has also designed a number of fabric lines for Cloud9 Fabrics, taught online sewing courses for Creativebug, and enjoys teaching local sewing workshops and lessons and hosting local meetups. Rae lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with her husband and three kiddos.
Registration includes lodging in a cabin (shared, or otherwise), all meals, and all instruction for six days. The cabins are rustic and spare, but modern and comfortable. Please do note that many of the cabins are in the woods, and require an uphill walk. If mobility is an issue for you, please contact me when you register. I will put you in a suitable cabin. We can accommodate most dietary restrictions within reason, just alert us to your needs in advance.
There are ten private cabins available. You can make this choice at registration. However if you do not get a private cabin, I can assure you there is plenty of room in each cabin for two or three adults.
A supply list will be sent out at least a month in advance of your arrival in Maine.
Otherwise, all you have to do is get yourself here, I'll take care of the rest. I will send out recommendations for what to wear and bring in advance. I send very detailed emails about how to get here, what to bring, how to prepare. Read them when they show up, most everything you could need will be in there…
The home made food at camp is fresh, simple, wholesome, and satisfying. Please notify me of food allergies, or if you are Vegetarian (specify if you do/do not eat dairy, eggs, fish, etc…) , but we suggest that unless you have a specific medical condition, you will find plenty to nourish you during your time at camp.
Medomak Retreat Center is in Washington, Maine, about 80 minutes from the Portland airport, 3 hours drive from Boston, 7 hours drive from NYC. Washington is only 30 minutes inland from Camden. The campus has 250 acres of blueberry fields and forest, with trails for hiking, tennis courts, and lakefront where canoes and kayaks are available. The cabins are clean and spare and perfectly comfortable.
After three years of working with Covid as a complication I continue to take it seriously. I require everyone to be vaccinated as recommended by the CDC. You can go to the CDC website HERE for the current guidelines. As of November 8, 2023 the CDC recommends that all adults receive the 2023–2024 updated Covid vaccines: Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, or Novavax. The updated vaccines became available in September 2023. Your vaccination must be from September 2023 or later.
I will ask all who are traveling to be diligent in their masking protocol. We will test upon arrival. These measures are taken to keep us all safe, and allow us to relax into our Making practice. I will have protocols in place in case of a positive test. That protocol will be shared in advance of gathering.
In order to give you some 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 delay the opening of registration. This year registration will open Sunday March 3rd at 3:00pm EST. I will send an email to my newsletter group when registration opens. If you want to be notified when registration is open, you should sign up for the newsletter, spots have gone quickly in the past….. You will need to pay a non-refundable deposit to register, and then arrangements can be made for how to pay your balance.
[Deposits are non refundable, but registrations are transferable. All efforts will be taken to accommodate Covid changes, but the virus moves in mysterious ways, and is able to out maneuver me. I ask for your patience and forbearance in dealing with these changes.]