Slow Fashion July
(SOLD OUT)
July 8-14, 2024
Medomak Retreat Center, Washington, Maine
with Cal Patch, Kristin Arzt, and Arounna Khounnoraj
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....
This retreat is now sold out, but if you would like your name added to the waitlist, please email me!
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, dyepots, and cloth. This July, I invite you to join Cal Patch, Kristin Arzt, and Arounna Khounnoraj to make that time and space for yourself.
Join Cal, Kristin, Arounna, 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, thread and dyepot. Each day will be spent with Cal, Kristin, or Arounna, learning their techniques and tips, and 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....
~Cal is an integral part of our Slow Fashion retreats, having been a founding instructor. This year she’s doing knits! You’ll make a custom T-shirt from knit fabric. There's nothing like having a tried-and-true T-shirt pattern that fits YOUR body, and is shaped exactly how you like! You will learn to draft a pattern for a T-shirt, based on your very own measurements. Then we'll make a muslin, fit it, correct your pattern, cut out the real shirt (or modified version... tunic? dress? pockets?) and sew it up! New skills you will acquire are sewing with knits, stretchy hem finishes, and finishing the neckline with a self band. Once you’ve made your first, you’ll see how many possibilities there are are for all sorts of design hacks. You might never buy another T-shirt again!
~Kristin returns this year with her magical natural dye pots to make more patterns on cloth. Together, you will explore pattern-making on natural fibers using resists and natural dyes. First, you will use clay paste to resist natural indigo dye. You will learn to mix paste resist and various application techniques, such as screen printing, block printing, painting, and more, along with the chemistry of natural indigo, and how to care for a natural fructose indigo vat. Kristin will also discuss making clay from your local soil and working with locally foraged clay paste resist. You will also delve into dyeing with mordant dyes, such as weld and madder, in tandem with Shibori resists to create beautiful patterns on cloth. You will learn how to prepare the fabric for dyeing and the different dyeing processes. Discover the wide array of colors, hues, and values these natural dyes can produce together and how they affect different types of fibers and mordants.
~Arounna joins us for the first time this year, to share her processes around patchwork resulting in a bag. In her workshop you will learn the concepts and techniques of patchwork that form a core part of textile design. You will explore how to create and develop your own patchwork piece, working intuitively with fabric to create compositional arrangements and use many of the methods that Arounna implements in her own work such as how to work with colour and texture and how to use different forms of stitchwork to enhance their compositions. Students will then use their patchwork creations as the central design element in a sewing project by creating a one of a kind bag.
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 make 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, draft out a new garment, 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 have no clothes to swap, yardage and patterns are always welcome for swapping! 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. 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 July....
Cal Patch
Cal has been a maker since she was a Girl Scout in the seventies. She sews, crochets, spins, embroiders, knits, prints, drafts patterns, dyes… hence the name of her label: Hodge Podge. Cal has been teaching textile arts for over 15 years, and loves showing people new skills. She designed clothes for several big names in the fashion industry before leaving to forge her own path as an independent artisan and create one-off handmade pieces. Cal owned a boutique in Manhattan and later opened one of the first indie craft schools in 2002. After seventeen years of designing clothes in New York City, she recently relocated to the Catskills, where she is becoming a crafty farmer. Her book on drafting sewing patterns, Design-It-Yourself Clothes, was published in 2009. Currently she teaches at various shops, studios and retreats around the country and sells her work at craft fairs and online in her Etsy shop. You can see what she's up to at calpatch.com.
Kristin Arzt
Kristin is a natural dyer, educator, gardener, and designer based in Maryland. She has taught workshops and led retreats all over the country, served on the board of Local Cloth, and been involved in Fibersheds from Northern California, to the Mid-Atlantic, to the Blue Ridge Mountains. By exploring the collision of textiles, plants, and sustainability, her goal is to help make the study of natural dyes accessible to everyone through education and enthusiasm. Kristin is a lifelong learner, a student and teacher of yoga (RYT 200), and is currently enrolled in her third Yoga Teacher Training program, often combining elements from these teachings into her creative workshops.
Arounna Khounnoraj
Arounna Khounnoraj is an artist and maker living in Canada, where she immigrated with her family from Laos at the age of four. Her education includes a master’s degree in fine arts in sculpture and ceramics, but it was through subsequent art residencies that she found her current focus in fibre arts with an emphasis on surface design techniques and textile printing. In 2002, she, along with her husband, John Booth, cofounded bookhou, a multidisciplinary studio where Arounna furthered her interest in screen printing and block printing as a means of translating her drawings onto fabric. Her use of hand-drawn imagery and botanical references contributed to a full range of items such as home goods and personal accessories, including bags. Her use of natural materials, combined with her ever-expanding interest in various forms of stitchwork like embroidery and punch needle, gives her work all the qualities of handmade, slow design.
Arounna has collaborated with artists and manufacturers both locally and internationally. She has created two fabric collections with Free Spirit and is currently working on new textile designs for Kokka in Japan. She has also collaborated with Socksappeal and Roots Canada, creating products with her designs.
Arounna has complemented her studio work by teaching workshops on various techniques all over the globe and has expanded this work with a large social media presence, which includes her popular videos on stitching techniques, as well as her studio explorations. She has done online workshops for the past few years and has created teaching videos with The Crafter’s Box and Creativebug.
Arounna’s videos have helped to popularize a renewed interest in punch-needle techniques. In 2019, she published her first book, Punch Needle: Master the Art of Punch Needling Accessories for You and Your Home. In 2020, she released Visible Mending, which introduced mending and the reuse of clothing as a personal and hands-on way to address issues of overconsumption and fast fashion in the textile industry. Her third book, Embroidery, was released in 2022. In 2023 she published Contemporary Patchwork: Techniques in Color, Surface Design & Sewing, followed by Winter Celebrations, A modern guide to a handmade Christmas.
Arounna currently lives in Toronto and Montreal, Canada. Her work can be found at www.bookhou.com and on Instagram @bookhou
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 assign you an appropriate 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…
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.
The 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.
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 good at outmaneuvering me. I ask for your patience and forbearance in dealing with these changes.]