Sewing Summit was such a fun sewing retreat/blogging conference and it’s so sad that it was over so quickly. However, I will be attending another retreat this coming weekend with my local guild, so I look forward to that, even though it will be another busy week!

You can read my earlier posts about Sewing Summit Day 1 and Sewing Summit Day 2.

On Saturday, I took business development classes all day. I came away more focused than I have been in a long time and I can’t wait to tell you more about my upcoming plans in future blog posts.

I listened to a presentation put on by Bernina called “Bloggers, Brands and Bernina.” The moderators were Amy Gutierrez, the director of marketing for Bernina USA and Alice Voss-Kantor, Bernina’s social media manager.

They let us know how as bloggers, we can reach out to Bernina and other companies whose products we like to use. Many companies are willing to trade their products in exchange for content like blog posts, tutorials and general publicity to get the word out about them.

The Bernina gals had to be sure and state that while they don’t give away their machines, they are willing to loan them out if certain criteria are met. I will definitely have to think about that, seeing as how I already promote their brand for free anyway, LOL!

Sorry for the bad pics, but the lighting was not ideal for picture taking!

Next, I listed to Tauni Everett’s excellent presentation on blogging and social media. Here a few tips I picked up:

• A self-hosted WordPress site is the best platform for blogging.
• Purchase your name URL for several years into the future – this helps with SEO (seach engine optimization).
• Be sure to include a descriptive tag under your blog name to describe it better.
• Do what you promise on your blog – if you promise to host an event, be sure to follow through in a timely manner.
• Being who you are is good, but be wary of TMI (too much information!)
• My favorite – Be real, be kind, be charitable, be consistent, build others up. 🙂

She also mentioned that while being on Facebook and Pinterest are also good, Instagram doesn’t yet have a way to refer people back to their blogs so it may not be worth the effort as far as trying to promote your blog that way. That made me feel better because so far I have resisted jumping on the Instagram bandwagon!

After lunch I attended the best class of the whole weekend, Building Your Creative Business with Alicia Dirago. She’s a successful 33 year old entrepreneur who built her business, WhimseyBox from the ground up by being bold and courageous and in her words, “by moving quickly and not being afraid to break things.”

She spoke in a warm, humorous way while giving advice. This picture speaks for itself:

I was overcome by emotion when Alicia had us write down on paper what our dreams really were and what is standing in the way of our success. She encouraged those of us who were brave enough to share it aloud with the rest of the class.

Here’s what I finally admitted:

“I want to share my love of machine quilting with as many people as possible. I want to teach people that they can finish their own quilts and take pride in doing so. And I want to write books about it.”

And what is standing in my way?

“The fear of failure and thinking that if people don’t like my quilts, that means they won’t like me.” Silly, I know, but when Alicia asked the entire class if anyone else felt the same way, they all raised their hands in support. It was a pretty powerful experience.

Later that night at dinner, a fellow blogger from that class came up to me and said, “I have a friend I know that would buy your book.” I guess I’d better get on it then.

Above is another excellent slide from the class. Alica also put up a graphic that I wasn’t able to get a picture of. It basically showed a straight line as people’s idea of how success worked. Then another scribbly line that twisted and turned and doubled back on itself before reaching the end as how success actually happens. Thanks Alicia – for keeping it real!

The final class of the day was about improving photography by Melissa Esplin. While much of the technical details were over my head (I’m still learning what ISO is), I did pick up a few pointers on lighting and still shooting.

Melissa recommends a tri-pod with a ball head that gives flexibility with camera positioning. She also said you can get a car sunshade with foil on one side as a cheaper alternative to a professional diffuser. And by wrapping a couple of cheap lights in tinfoil with a home-made cloth covering, you can set up an inexpensive lighting system.

Finally, to cap off the evening, we got to hear Heather Bailey’s success story. She originally started off wanting to become a surgeon while taking creative classes on the side. She eventually came to the conclusion that having a creative career would allow her more flexibility and time to be a mom.

Heather was one of the early influencers driving the designer fabric market. Her “a-ha” moment was when she realized she could design fabrics and products that would appeal to her peers, and use the internet to communicate her ideas. Followers would then flock to fabric designer’s blogs to see what they were creating and be inspired. Do any of you do that? I know I do!

Heather left us with some sage words of wisdom: now that we are all excited and ready to take on the world of creative business, we need to pause and take a bit of time for calm, quiet reflection before we dive in.

Sounds like a plan to me. 🙂

Here’s my report on Sewing Summit Day 2 – food, friends, fun, and fantastic classes! You can read about Day 1 here.

Friday was spent in classes – 2 in the morning and 2 in the afternoon after lunch. My lectures and classes were awesome as you can see from the pics below.

First up I attended an excellent lecture on getting a book published, given by literary agent Kate McKean. I learned you won’t get rich from writing quilting books, but if you are tenacious enough and willing to do the hard work, it can have an enormous impact on one’s quilting career.

I hung on her every word and jotted down a few notes that I’ll need to include when it comes time for me to start that part of my quilting journey. It can take nearly 2 years to get a book to market once a proposal is written, so I’ve got lots of homework to do! (Hmm… I wonder if Chevrons will still be popular then?)

That lecture was followed up by a fabulous seminar on getting work published in magazines, by Ellen March, editor-in-chief of several sewing magazines.

This one I was a little more comfortable with since my first published magazine pattern will be coming out soon.

Ellen reminded us of several key points – know your stuff, know your audience, and write content relevant to the magazine you are seeking to submit to. And, remember to say thank you if they decide to choose your work.

After a fabulous lunch, it was time for a bit of afternoon sewing. I took Angela Pingel’s curves class which I really enjoyed.

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We sewed together a fun block which was a modern take on a drunkard’s path block. She taught us the key to sewing curves – use pins and sew half the curve at a time. For more specifics, be sure to watch Angela’s blog for her announcement about her forthcoming book on the subject!

This enjoyable class was followed up by a quick and easy piecing class taught by Amy Smart on how to make basic HST’s from oversized squares. Though she told me I could probably teach the class myself, it was a an enjoyable afternoon of stress-free sewing and I still learned a few tricks!It was inspiring to see some of the students’ layouts. Fun stuff!

The evening was capped off by another fun night of open sewing and I got a jump start on my Modern Trees QAL.

I even met up with one of my customers, Katy from Canada, along with her buddy. They were working on some fun pajama pants, adding in a little bit of fabric they got from me. It was fun to make so many new friends in person!

I probably got more sewing done this weekend than I usually do in a week. My final Sewing Summit wrap up post will be tomorrow so you won’t want to miss it!