It was a crazy weekend last week! I attended the second Sewing Summit. There were no nights between Wednesday and Saturday that I went to bed before 3 am. I was either working feverishly to prepare or having too much fun sewing and gabbing with new and old friends. It was definitely a weekend to go down in the journal. This was part of our amazing group of thrifters on Thursday afternoon. We all scored some amazing finds! From left: Maria, Lisa, Heather, me, Katie, Veronica and Carrie. Photo by Katie. I taught a design principles for bloggers lecture while I was there, sharing with fellow attendees my personal must and must nots of blog layouts. I had a great turn out (60+?), but several couldn't make it due to scheduling. So I thought I'd do a 'quick' 28 minute recap for so you can glean from that lecture as well. If you want a personal design consultation, I'm now offering them here. Basic Design Tips for Bloggers from melissapher on Vimeo. While at Sewing Summit I made a table cloth, a skirt from a top, a maxi skirt for Penelope, two maxi skirts for me, I refinished the insides of a few of my handmade items, I made a pillow with an invisible zipper and four perfectly pointed quilt squares. I stayed BUSY! I took a serger class (maxi skirts with Leanne Barlow) and took advantage of the precious serger time and finished a bunch of outstanding projects with the Babylock sergers. They were dreamy and now I lust after one. I'm not sure that purchase will be in the near future, but at least I'm not so afraid of them anymore. Or invisible zippers (thanks to Miranda). I had some awesome roommates, Miranda, Mim and Rach (not pictured). I could totally bust out my inner 12 year old around these awesome women. I definitely looking forward to next year. And in other news: Babble posted my blog as one of the top 50 design blogs for moms. I'm pretty excited about my major award and being listed among some really top notch reads. I discovered quite a few new-to-me reads there as well. You should check it out. Valerie from DIY Bride interviewed me as part of her real DIYers series. I feel honored to have participated. I share my current reads and obsessions in Mom's Best Fall Mag (page 49).