For the past 3 years, I have been meeting my Mom in Puyallup, WA on the last day of the Sewing & Stitchery Expo.  I drive down from the Seattle area and my Mom drives up from the Portland area.  We usually roam around the vendors looking at all the awesome fabric, gadgets and getting a lot of inspiration. This year, I actually spent all day Saturday at the Expo by myself, taking classes.  I signed up for 3 classes, the first a lecture from the famous (in sewing circles) Pati Palmer, who also happens to be the aunt of a friend from high school.  The lecture was all about sewing with knits, which is something I am very interested in.  It was definitely more geared towards adult garmet sewing but the information about types of knits was exactly what I needed. My second class was a hands on class all about Serger basics with this bad boy serger.  This thing was huge and crazy expensive!  It was an awesome class and it really could have been an all day class, heck even a whole weekend.  In the class we learned 2 ways to add a cuff to a sleeve. Here are my 2 itty bitty sleeves with cuffs!  I am new to the world of sergers so while I had attached a cuff to a sleeve before, I did however learn a sweet trick on how to tie off the chain of the serger.  The second project we worked on was a cute cross body shirt with a bias tape trim.  While I was working on this one the famous (in sewing circles) Nancy Zieman and her tv crew came into our classroom.  The cameraman even filmed me for a little bit, not sure if it will end up anywhere, but hopefully they got my good side (HA!). During my downtime between classes I picked up a few prints of Tula Pink’s new line – Foxfield!  So cute and so happy I bought it then, because they were just about out of it on Sunday!  Pacific Fabrics had the line early for the show since Tula Pink herself was signing copies of her book, and fabric, and shirts in their booth. The last class I took on Saturday was an appliquing with minky class, it was interesting but I really didn’t learn any new tricks, but I did win something! A very pretty quilt pattern!

On Sunday I met my Mom and we had fun browsing the booths! I took one more class before heading home on Sunday – it was a great class about sewing tricks from the fashion trade.  It was a lecture given by Connie Crawford.  She had very eye opening tips and tricks to share from the fashion industry.  I really want her book – A Guide to Fashion Sewing by Connie Crawford – but it’s a textbook so the price tag is on the high side – I will need to save up!

It was a fun show and I really enjoyed the classes.  I really need to get some more classes on my calendar! So much to learn!