A Great Sewing Getaway/School

I have always loved teaching in Myrtle Beach for the Stranded Stitchers and Smockers at their annual January Sewing at the Beach event.  The school is well organized, well run and reasonably priced.  The classes are fabulous, the daily table favors are charming and the market is great.

Hope Yoder and her button machine

It is held right on the beach at lovely hotel.

The classrooms are spacious, with uncrowded work areas.  There are always plenty of irons,  press cloths, rotary mats and cutters, and everything you need to have a well set up classroom.

Before class, early risers walk the sandy beach.  The workshop is almost always held over Martin Luther King weekend.  For anyone who grows weary of winter at home, Sewing at the Beach can be a well timed getaway to a mild climate.

You can read about the last time I taught there here and then again here.  It is a joy and a bargain to be there.  To a person, everyone is so friendly, helpful and cooperative.

This may read like an infomercial, but is, in fact, a from-the-heart recommendation for anyone looking for a sewing getaway.  I have to admit that  it’s a little bittersweet for me to tell you all about Sewing at the Beach, since I cannot be there this year.

Having officially announced my retirement from teaching, I had a pang of regret when I read the brochure that came in the mail a few days ago.  Noting the absence of my name on the faculty list made me gulp and feel a little sad.

It is especially disappointing because beloved Diva Eloise Smith (of Point and Tuck Shark’s Teeth Ruler fame and reigning Southern Belle Matriarch) is expected to come by for a few days.  I really would love to see her.

For some time, I entertained the possibility of attending as a student or even going as a vendor.  But then we got the exciting news that our daughter’s second child would be born around Christmas.  Of course, I will spend a few weeks helping out as they find their groove with the new baby girl.  I can’t wait to meet our newest granddaughter and get my fill of rocking and loving on her. But there will be no Sewing at the Beach  for me.

But you could go!   I once asked if the Stranded Smockers somehow screened prospective students so they get only nice people.  Well, it turns out they don’t, but you would think they did if you met other registrants, the teachers and the class angels from the Stranded Smockers group.

From what I know of you dear readers, you would make the cut even if they did have that screening process.   And you would love Sewing at the Beach 2013.  I know I would.