Recap | Camp Stitches 2015

Hey y'all! Last week I hosted a 4 day sewing bootcamp for 8 students and boy was it fun! 

My heart in creating this event was to share my love of sewing with excited girls and provide a joyful week of fellowship around a learning experience. The Lord greatly blessed the entire week and worked out every detail amazingly! 

 The first big answer to prayer was that a long real estate transaction finally closed just a few days before the camp began which opened up this incredible space for us to use!

Day one we made denim bags (from Fresh Apparel scraps!) with pleather accents. This project was a doozy for even the advanced seamstresses but everyone did amazing! (and vowed to never sew a bag again, lol) 

Day two we learned how to sew knits and used Simplicity 1198 to create tunic shirts. They turned out so beautiful! Everyone persevered with such grace through misbehaving machines, lost fabric pieces, and weird piecing techniques. 

To say we had a good time is a major understatement. :D 

"Everybody clap your hands! Clap clap clap clap clap clap clap"

 This is a pretty good summary of everyone's personalities and effectively shows the level of drama this group constantly had. :D

Back left to right: Tori, Katie, Emma, Katy, Anna Grace.

Front left to right: Kiera, Lia, Abby. :)  

 Hard at work. 

I love all the artsy shots Katie took! 

Day 3 and 4 we tackled dresses! Lia brought a few of her completed sewing projects and Tori fell in love with this red and white striped one, so she used Lia's pattern with this gorgeous olive fabric and crafted a darling dress. 

 Tori, Katie, and Anna Grace traveled from North Carolina to attend Camp Stitches!

Lia also brought her tailor's ham (that thing on the ironing board) and it made pressing so much easier! I've now ordered myself one because the quality difference in ironing is amazing! Here's a link to the one I picked up.

Anna Grace utilized the dress form to pin her sleeve and neck bindings to the bodice.  

Liaaaaaaa!  

 Katyyyyyyy! (She totally blew me away with how quickly she picked up reading and using a pattern!)

Magnetic pincushions for the wiiiiin.

Poor Tori did a lot of seam ripping when her pieces got mixed up with someone else's. :P

Kiera was such a joy to be around! She took her time and it really paid off! 

Hand stitching the lining.

Examining a sleeve hem. 

Laughing and seam ripping. :D 

Winging a pocket for Abby's dress big enough for her phone. 

We discovered that invisible zippers are SO much easier to install and make look good than regular zippers! Love how they turned out. 

What an incredible gift to spend a 4 days and 5 nights with these girls!

 Everyone went home talking about their next project and I'm so amazed by how much they learned in the week. I'm re-inspired myself and hope to share some more about getting started in sewing here on the blog.

• If you are interested in attending a future Camp Stitches, click here to sign up for the camp mailing list. 
• If you're wondering about what I recommend for sewing supplies basics, I've created an Amazon store with the products I've found to be the best/most useful. Click here to see that (there are two pages and two categories, so click around) [affiliate link]
• The Modest Fashion Guild is hosting a really, really cool challenge in November to raise awareness about the injustices in the fashion factories, check that out here, seamstresses! 

 Thank you for reading about the good time we had! I hope you are having a productive week! Blessings!