Bloggers! Show and Tell! Chat and Laughter! Cañada College!

I managed to leave my camera at home when I took my body to the Fabulously Fun Cañada College Blogger Gathering last night, but there are pictures galore on shams' post about the event, so I'll scoot you on over there for the visuals.

(side note:  I finally learned how to do the en-yay over the ñ in Cañada!!!  I'm slow sometimes, but I learn eventually.  In case you don't know yet, on a Mac you just hold down the Alt key, then press n twice)

Back to the good stuff - I've never yet taken an actual sewing class, but I get so motivated when I see the gorgeous work that comes from people like Ronda Chaney, Wayne Wichern, and Lynda Maynard, Educators Extraordinaire at Cañada - at times like this I want to be independently wealthy...at least enough to take classes and workshops wherever and whenever!   Wayne showed some of his gorgeous hat creations, and I would join a workshop with him tomorrow if I could!  I jumped all over Lynda's book, "The Dressmaker's Handbook of Couture Sewing Techniques"

Don't let the "Couture" in the title dissuade you - this book is CHOCK FULL of valuable finishing tips and techniques, the pictures are abundant, the explanations are clear - this is a must-have for anyone who wants to step up their skill level!

Seeing blogger/sewing friends I already know is always a delight: shams, of course, Rose from needles, pins, thorns, Beth of sunnygalstudio, and Jean of jkaoridesigns and I loved meeting the people behind a few of the blogs I've already been following and enjoying: Amy of Sew Well, and Cindy of Cation Designs, which, I was happy to finally find out, is pronounced cat (as in our purr-babies) eye-on - apparently this is a scientific geeky term, which Cindy has promised to explain....I'll be watching for it....;-).  And I got to meet some totally new-to-me bloggers, Jenny of JennyRinn Designs, Sonia of Sew With Sonia, and Katy of KatyRenee, who also works at Cañada <~~please note that en-yay again - sometimes the simplest little things can please me ever so much...;-D

There's just something about a group of like-minded sewists who gather together - I think we're extraordinarily delightful people in general, and this was a particularly fun and talented batch, as evidenced by never-ending chat and laughter, and some truly inspirational sharing in a show-and-tell session.

When Ronda asked if they should do this again, the answer was a resounding "YES!", so I hope it does happen, and some more local bloggers extraordinaire can attend :)

And to top it off, we all went home with a wonderful gift bag:

 - the bag itself is fabulously made (but of course), and it contained some really wonderful gifties inside, including a pass to the Must-Not-Miss-Event, Artistry In Fashion, to be held at Cañada (there's that en-yay again....) on September 29 - I do hope to meet some more of you there this year!   Here is my blog post about my experience there last year - truly this is not to be missed!

I am so blessed - thank you to everyone who was there, and helped make my evening such a delightful one. :)