Amanda Blake Soule to be guest of honor at inaugural SEAM meeting!

We are certainly kicking things off with a bang here at SEAM: our very first guest of honor will be none other than Amanda Soule, author of the popular blog Soulemama! For anyone who has not yet heard of this amazing lady, here are some words from Amanda's publisher...

Amanda Blake Soule is a crafty mama of five. Her days are spent in her hometown of Poland, Maine plotting ways to avoid laundry, dishes and mopping in favor of knitting, sewing, baking, playing with her children, and visiting the beach.

Amanda created SouleMama.com in early 2005. Since then, she's shared her adventures in family, craft, thrifting and life nearly each day. She is now joined by her husband Steve, a.k.a. Soulepapa. Amanda is also the author of The Creative Family: How to Encourage Imagination and Nurture Family Connections and Handmade Home: Simple Ways to Repurpose Old Materials into New Family Treasures. Her third book, The Rhythm of Family: Discovering a Sense of Wonder Through the Seasons was written with her husband, Stephen, and was published in the Summer of 2011.

The meeting will take place at 4:00 pm on Saturday, January 21st at Alewives Fabrics in Nobleboro (directions available here and phone number available here).

A small warning for anyone visiting Alewives for the first time: sometimes GPS systems do not work very well in the area, but we are very easy to find by following the written directions on the website. Also, we are very good at taking phone calls and "talking people in."

Anyone is welcome to attend this meeting and there is no charge for attendance.

The meeting's agenda includes:

• A casual meet & greet and book-signing with Amanda (copies of Handmade Home and Rhythm of the Family available for purchase at Alewives, or bring your personal copies and have them signed). We are keeping things decidedly low-key! Amanda will be around to mix and mingle with attendees and sign books as well. Feel free to ask her questions and share your inspirations with her!

• Show and tell. Bring a completed project you'd like to share so we can all "ooh" and "ahh" over it. It could be a garment, bag, quilt, tablerunner... anything you have stitched yourself! If you don't have a completed project you'd like to share, bring a project that's still in the works. Or, bring your favorite book, piece of fabric or even your favorite sewing gadget and tell us all about it!

• If you have a handwork project, please bring it with you to work on as we all chat. This can be knitting, embroidery, crochet, applique, paper-pieced hexagons, nearly anything you'd like. (To keep things simple, portable and at a dull roar for this first meeting, we won't be doing any work on sewing machines, but in the future we would love to hold special meetings where members can bring their machines and stitch the day away!)

• Please feel free to bring food and drink to share if you feel so inclined! Alewives will be providing some light refreshments for all to enjoy.




















Remember, ANYONE is welcome to attend this meeting. There is no fee for attendance and we don't require that you be a "master" seamstress or an "amazing" quilter... just someone who likes fabric, sewing and/or the writings of Amanda Blake Soule!

This first meeting is sure to be a hoot: if you are able to come and visit, we would love to see you there!