Before all the Christmas  music  and media being pumped on the airways since Nov 1st block out any memory of Fall and Thanksgiving, I thought I would post here pictures of my Fall season. Don’t get me wrong. I am happy for Christmas to come. I just want to use this post  to remind myself of  just what I am thankful for. With families in Paris mourning their loss, refugees fleeing Syria, and even (  good gracious…) too many homeless living my my own home town,   I am wanting to pause and be thankful for my life,  my health, my sewing skills,my friends, my family. You know- thankful for all the big and little stuff in my life.These are so many things that  I have that I know others in the world don’t have  or don’t have access to today.

First  to share briefly that I had a  great time at Camp Workroom Social. It was great to get together with like minded sewing people and enjoy sewing together, talking sewing “stuff” in class and in the bunk house, learning some new sewing  tools and techniques to use and  to do it all in the glorious Fall colors  of upstate NY.  The drive up in the bus was a gorgeous  fall scene outside the window and the YMCA camp we stayed in ( FROST VALLEY YMCA CAMP )was AMAZING, spacious and comfortable.  Trust me- I went to “sleep away” camp as a kid every summer. Camp Workroom Social was  glamorous camping -or GLAMPING as it’s known.   For me it seemed the camp really knew how to make a large group of people feel comfortable in the woods. We were rather a large group- about 50 0r so women. And we were not the only group at the camp property  that weekend. The camp  itself was a “well oiled machine” when it came to  feeding and accommodating large groups. We had  a comfortable “bunk house” and the  our group had a private dining room in the large cafeteria building, so  I did not feel like our large group was “banging into” another group on the grounds. There may have been chaos somewhere ( Jennifer our  Head Counselor would have known…) but I didn’t feel it.

Outside of sewing, I took on hiking and Archery (gettin’ my “Katniss Everdeen” on)  which really did conjure up memories of my childhood summer camp days.

Hey – I didn’t forget everything from when I was a kid-I got three bullseye during the archery session.  I figured that wasn’t too bad  since I hadn’t done archery since waaaayyyy back when.

Although I took a few private walks in the woods, I have included shots from our Saturday morning group hike.  Nothing like a 7:30am hike in the  Fall woods before breakfast and a full day of sewing. Some of you are cringing right now at that thought , but for me it was great.       

We had great weather  with just enough chill in the air, and the Fall colors were at their peak for Upstate NY. We  even experienced 15 minutes of snow fall during one of the chillier days in the afternoon- which made some of  the folks who came from California go wild and take selfies outside in the snow. The Canadians laughed at this.

Since I ended taking up classes that were Fitting with Melissa during the weekend, there was not really a garment to complete for the weekend- like the jeans or the patternmaking or the kids clothes or the  bramaking classes did.  I did learn  a lot during the weekend that I know  will help me fit others and myself better. Also I did come away with an excellently “fit- to- me” basic bodice, sleeve, and pant sloper.  Those slopers alone are priceless. I am armed and ready for any pattern making creativity.

More to come…