The Sewing Summit - a modern sewing & blogging conference

At the end of the post yesterday I said I had been working on something that I hadn't been able to talk about yet - but that we were close to announcing it. Some of you with eagle eyes might have spotted a new button over on the sidebar ... see it?

I'm planning a modern sewing and blogging conference called The Sewing Summit! My friend Amy from Amy's Creative Side and I recognized a need and a desire for this type of event in our community and decided to take on planning it ourselves. There's lots of other quilt retreats, blogging conferences, sewing classes -- but nothing that is exactly quite right for "us".

We're planning lots of stuff to do with sewing: classes on machine quilting, bag making, garment construction, improv piecing; make and take projects, question and answer panels with some of the best sewists in our industry ... but we're also having an online side to it: using social media, participating in online quilting bees and swaps, blogging. We haven't been able to say much online about it yet, but we have been planning it since July and are absolutely bursting with all the great stuff we've got going so far ... it seriously is going to be the best event, and you are not going to want to miss it!

Who's invited? You are! We've wanted from the start for this event to be for the people that sew as well are somehow are involved with the online community (if you're even reading this blog -- that's you!) but might not have lots of friends in their real lives that they can talk to about or sew with. Won't it be awesome to be surrounded by hundreds of other people that you know will squeal in delight with you over the newest fabric line?! Or sit up all night and chat and sew with in our all-night sewing room packed with 50 machines? Or go out to dinner and explore the city with a bunch of your friends that you've been in quilting bees with and have known online for years - but have never met face to face?! Like I said - not going to want to miss it!

It's on the books for October 2011 in downtown Salt Lake City. One of our main goals has always been to keep it accessible for lots of people to attend and so we're trying to give you plenty of time to plan for it both monetarily and time-wise. We hope you'll want to make a girls vacation out of it and come along with a big group of your friends! We promise we've got more awesome details coming soon - but here's a few hints: our venue is a 4* hotel in downtown Salt Lake City with a room rate under $100 per night! swag bags that are going to be filled to the brim with awesome stuff, probably worth more than the ticket price alone (did you see that Moda is a sponsor?!!) Famous sewing and quilting bloggers? Yup, we've got them - some already committed to coming in and we're still on the look out for more!

What can you do? Start saving your fun-money to be able to attend. :] Help us spread the word -- tweet, blog, Facebook about it, and we've got buttons on our blog that you can snag to use in your sidebar. Fill out our survey so we can make sure we know exactly what it is you'd want to get out of an event like this -- because after all, we're planning it for you!

Can't wait to hear what you think!