I’m back for the second part of my recap of Camp Workroom Social. In part 1, I talked all about the weekend and answered some questions I received on Instagram about the weekend. Here in part two, I’m going to be chatting all about the intensive I took and my lessons learned from the weekend.
Similar to part 1, I get bad blogger award for lack of tons of pictures form the weekend – so imagination is still required!
The Intensive | Jacketmaking with Christine Haynes
Out of the different intensives that were offered, I signed up for Jacketmaking mainly because at the time I signed up back in February I hadn’t made a jacket. Since then I have made three jackets/coats (my Chloe Coat, Lonetree Jacket and Kelly Anorak) – but even having made those, I still learned SO much from the weekend while making the Ellsworth Coat from Christine Haynes.
The Instructors
What I thought was the most amazing part of the weekend were the instructors and assistants for each of the intensives. The Jacketmaking intensive was taught by Christine and assisted by Kelli from True Bias and Sonja from Hell Gate Fabric. Also, a fun fact I learned this weekend that Sonja was the inspiration for the Ginger Jeans! I almost died when I found out!
I can’t tell you how amazing the instructors were – they were so incredibly supportive throughout the whole jacketmaking class. I’ll talk about each day of the class in a bit, but the end of the class got a smidge chaotic and I was so impressed how Christine was able to jump in to whatever step anyone was on to help them get to completion!
The Intensive
Jacketmaking was a full two days worth of material. Everyone went home with a little bit extra to work on as well. There are just so many steps throughout the process and cutting the fabric took almost half the first day. Something to note if you are planning on attending Camp Workroom Social – the expectation is that you would cut your fabric with scissors. I have never cut a garment out with scissors – I only learned how to cut on a rotary cutter – so I was in a bit of a pickle. Fortunately one of the other campers had a large cutting mat! But just something to note if you’re like me.
Once everything was cut out, it was off to the races. The first day was a lot of prep work on the coat – getting markings set and sewing together the simple seams. We did get through the pockets on Saturday which I have never been so proud of my top stitching. I will talk more about my jacket on Monday, but I picked a very challenging fabric and it was very shifty – but the pockets served to be a lot easier than expected!
The Jacketmaking class was so amazing because I learned SO much! Christine (and Kelli and Sonja) are amazing teachers – Christine walked us through every step of the process including explaining why we sew things a particular way. I am planning on making another Kelly Anorak in the coming weeks and know everything she taught me will be applicable to that as well.
When day 2 rolled around, things got a bit more chaotic as we got closer to the end of the day. At Camp, while you are there for 4 days, there is only true sewing time on Saturday and Sunday. No one in my class finished the jacket – I think cutting out some of the cutting (ha – no pun intented) would help ensure that people finished or had a fighting chance. I fortunately just have a few things left – buttonholes, sewing the sleeve hem to the lining and some top stitching – but others went home with more “homework.”
The only thing I “wished” was different at camp was that there was more sewing time – I would have enjoyed a bit more sewing on Monday morning to finish up some of the sewing we worked on all weekend. That being said, I totally understand why the days are laid out the way they are – and 16 hours of sewing in 2 days is a lot!
The Awards
Remember how I mentioned that my fabric was a bit challenging – it also frayed like CRAZY! At one point during the weekend we had to trim down seam allowances on the jacket and it legitimately looked like I might have murdered Elmo with all the fuzz.
In the awards ceremony at camp – one of the funniest and best parts – I was the recipient of the Muppet Wrangler Award! I could not stop laughing – but hey, it was true!
The Supplies and Equiptment
Camp Workroom Social sent out a supplies list before Camp and I was pretty good about bringing most things. I do wish that they had explained what each item was used for though because I did not use a good amount of the items included on the list and then learned the hard way about the rotary cutter that I mentioned above!
Workroom Social is a Janome dealer and we were provided with sewing machines to use for the weekend. As a Bernina girl, I was really skeptical – but I almost bought the machine I used all weekend. It was SO reliable! We used the Janome New Home Mod-100 which turned out to be a real workhorse.
Summary
I would highly recommend jacketmaking as an intensive for any level of sewist – from adventurous beginner up to the more advanced. The instructors were so incredible that I think there is something everyone can learn from the class. Also, something about uninterupted sewing time – I only ripped one seam out all weekend – for me that’s an amazing feat. I have Christine’s calm nature to thank for that – we took each step one step at a time and it allowed me to really think before getting too far.
I was so nervous going to camp – I am not an outdoors person, I do not like to travel, and I’m kind of an introvert. None of these served to be an issue at all all weekend. I am so thankful to be able to disconnect from the “real world” for a weekend and spend the weekend with such amazing women.
I have a few small items to finish up on my jacket this weekend and I hope to have it on the blog on Monday for #MeMadeMonday – so stay tuned! Have a good weekend everyone!
As I read your self description as a woman who is not an outdoors person, doesn’t like to travel and is an introvert, I thought, “oh that describes me rather well!” When I saw the advertising for this sewing retreat I wasn’t convinced it would be something I would really like either (other than meeting all those wonderful teachers!) but after reading your post I think I would have loved it! Marcy and Katherine Tilton host a weekend retreat here every year near Seattle where they live so I’m thinking I might just give that a go!
You recaptured the weekend perfectly! (I almost said weekendly … clearly I have not yet recovered from CWS). I think what you get at best is that Camp Workroom Social is for everyone – even if summer camp wasn’t your thing. It was so wonderful to be around so many thoughtful and creative women. Thanks again for being my cutting table mate & roomie!