Slow Stitching July
JULY 20-26, 2026
MEDOMAK RETREAT CENTER, WASHINGTON, MAINE
with Jessica Wohl, Youngmin Lee & Cal Patch
A small group of just thirty-six Makers will spend five full days in exploration of line, color, and stitch at a contemplative pace. Surrounded by the woods, on the edge of a lake, with the rustic beauty and charm of Maine as the backdrop. Small groups, individual pacing, natural inspiration-this will be a week for unwinding and exploring....
• Single cabin, $2,250.
• Double Cabin, $2,050.
• Triple Cabin, $1,850.
Registration will open for all on Sunday March 1st at 3:00PM EST
IMPORTANT NOTE: For the best experience of all involved, I will continue to engage Covid protocols. While the danger of contracting the virus is less, it still holds risks for many. I will require first time Campers to provide vaccine records that show up-to-date vaccinations prior to the current CDC administration for participation. (That means records that show vaccines from the inception 2021 to 2025 recommendations.) If you have participated in the past I will not require new records, though will be happy to know that you have gotten them if you choose to share. I will also ask that all Campers take precautions in the week leading up to their visit. More details will be shared once you have registered.
Are you seeking the time and space to slow down and connect with your skills, your agency, your creative practice in community? In these challenging chaotic, isolating digital days, we crave connection and community with other Makers. Maine is a good place to retreat, step back from the daily pace, and spend some time with your peers with needle, thread, dyepots, and cloth. This July, I invite you to join Jessica Wohl, Youngmin Lee, and Cal Patch to make that time and space for yourself.
Join Jessica, Youngmin, Cal, and me at the Medomak Retreat Center in Washington, ME where you can relax, unwind, and dive into your stitching practice. You will sleep in a modern yet rustic cabin, eat three meals a day with the community, and spend as much time as you like with color, needle, and thread. Each day will be spent with Jessica, Youngmin or Cal, learning their techniques and tips, and practicing new skills or sharpening old ones. In addition there are two days of time for musings, wanderings, exploration, and epiphany, both of the textile and human variety. The emphasis here is on settling into your Making practice and letting the rest of it float away....
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN:
~Jessica is joining us as an instructor for the first time, after attending a couple years in the past. She is going to share her take on Quilts With Something to Say. This workshop invites quilters to move beyond traditional block patterns and discover quilting as a powerful medium for personal expression. Working with a single, unified composition—much like a painter approaches a canvas—you’ll learn to align your quilt’s visual elements with the ideas, emotions, or stories you want to communicate. Whether you’re processing something that’s been weighing on your mind, trying to resolve an unfinished project, or exploring a concept that demands release, this workshop provides practical tools for translating internal experiences into cohesive visual narratives. Through guided exercises in the properties of color and composition, you’ll develop your own creative voice and learn to trust your instincts as you design a quilt that says exactly what you mean.
~Youngmin returns! She will share her techniques on Stitching Happiness, something we all can use more of, through the practice of Ssamsol Jogakbo.
Jogakbo, patchwork bojagi, was traditionally made from remnants of leftover cloths in the past. The act of hand stitching a bojagi is considered a way of wishing happiness and well-being for the recipients, the users, and the maker alike. In this workshop, Youngmin will teach the basics of jogakbo construction using ssamsol, a distinctive seam that creates a single-layered, translucent patchwork bojagi. You will work with many small pieces of fabrics, embracing the beauty of reuse and repurpose. The class emphasizes slow, relaxing hand stitching, inviting participants to stitch with intention while wishing happiness of maker and recipient of the bojagi. You will also learn about traditional bojagi designs and colors, together with an intuitive, improvisational, free form design approach. This workshop is a hand- sewing class.
~Cal And, no, your eyes are not deceiving you, I am adding a bit of garment sewing to a quilting week! Cal is going to share her Boxy/Drapey Top with you quilters this Summer!
Sewing your own clothes is satisfying and practical. Drafting your own patterns goes one step further and puts the entire design process in your hands. Cal will teach you how to draft a pattern for a simple woven top that can easily be customized in myriad ways. As a shorter, loose-fitting top, it’s a “Boxy Top”, but make it longer, with a bit more ease, in a fabric with good drape like linen, and it’s a “Drapey Tunic”. This is a perfect intro to pattern-drafting if you’ve been wanting to dip your toe in the water, and the sewing couldn’t be simpler. Your finished pattern can then become the basis for "hacking" into a whole wardrobe of garments: dresses, shirts, jackets, hoodies, with every sort of detail under the sun (collars, hoods, plackets, pockets etc)! This basic t-shirt shape makes a lovely “blank canvas” pattern to use as a foundation for all sorts of techniques: piecing, quilting, embroidering, dyeing, eco-printing… and of course you can combine and layer the treatments to create the most special garments.
We all have fat quarters or other smallish cuts of precious fabrics, too small to use for garments - until now! You can play around with different seam placements and piece together smaller scraps of fabric, placing some of those treasured morsels front and center.
In this workshop, we’ll begin by drafting the basic pattern to your measurements, then cut + sew a quick muslin (fit sample) to check fit, and tweak the pattern if necessary. Next you’ll either continue by turning your sample into a *wearable muslin*, or cut a new one, perhaps adding extra seams or pockets. Beginner stitchers will keep it fairly simple, and those with more advanced skills can customize to their hearts’ content. Everyone will leave with a garment that reflects their personality and ideas to make endless variations!
OTHER FUN STUFF:
You will spend a day with each teacher, with plenty of time for inspirational wanderings. Two back-to-back, then a break. On the third day we will make a small field trip to the coast and a fabulous local fabric store. Or if you prefer, you can go for a swim, take a hike, do some stitching, some reading, or whatever your heart desires. The last day of instruction is on Friday. Then Saturday is entirely for you to do with as you please. Check in with one of the instructors on a technique you need clarification on, take a nap, sew with new friends, the day is yours!
We will have a fabric swap, so bring any fabrics, patterns, yarns, or other notions etc, that aren’t singing to you any more. I like the idea of moving goods through the universe free of the capitalist system. The swap nights are always tons of fun!
The primary focus for the week will be on slowing down, taking time, connecting to your practice, the community, and your inner voice. Evenings will be open for more stitching, conversing, knitting, star gazing, cricket concerts, Loon appreciation, and anything else you might like to do in Maine in July....
INSTRUCTORS:
Jessica Wohl
Jessica Wohl uses found remnants of domestic culture to explore social inequities that range from systemic racism to the demands of motherhood. Born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota she graduated from the Kansas City Art Institute and received her MFA from the University of Georgia. Among other publications, her work has been featured in the New York Times T Magazine, New American Paintings, Vogue, ArtNews, and has been widely exhibited nationally and internationally. She has held residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, the Hambidge Center for the Art, Stove Works and participated in An Artist Residency in Motherhood. She is currently an Associate Professor of Art and Chair of the Art, Art History and Visual Studies department at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee.
Youngmin Lee
Youngmin Lee is a Korean textile artist living in the San Francisco Bay Area. With a BA in Clothing and Textile and an MFA in Fashion Design, Youngmin has presented numerous workshops, classes and demonstrations on Korean Textile Arts including workshops at numerous places such as the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, Oakland Museum, Pacific International Quilt Festival (PIQF) in Santa Clara, Richmond Art Center, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in Los Angeles, Mendocino Art Center, Festival of Quilts in Birmingham UK, QuiltCon, A Gathering of Stitches retreat in Maine, Quilting by the Lake in New York, and Textile Art Council of De Young Museum in San Francisco.
Youngmin’s bojagi work was shown at the Asian Art Museum’s Asia Alive program in San Francisco and other museums and galleries in the U.S. and internationally. Her latest book, “Bojagi: The Art of Korean Textiles”, was released in 2024 through Herbert Press.
Cal Patch
Cal has been a maker since she was a Girl Scout in the seventies. She sews, crochets, spins, embroiders, knits, prints, drafts patterns, dyes… hence the name of her label: Hodge Podge. Cal has been teaching textile arts for over 20 years, and loves showing people new skills. She designed clothes for several big names in the fashion industry before leaving to forge her own path as an independent artisan and create one-off handmade pieces. Cal owned a boutique in Manhattan and later opened one of the first indie craft schools in 2002. After seventeen years of designing clothes in New York City, she recently relocated to the Catskills, where she is becoming a crafty farmer. Her book on drafting sewing patterns, Design-It-Yourself Clothes, was published in 2009. Currently she teaches at various shops, studios and retreats around the country and sells her work at craft fairs and online in her Etsy shop. You can see what she's up to at calpatch.com.
LOGISTICS:
Registration includes lodging in a cabin (shared, or otherwise), all meals, and all instruction for six days. The cabins are rustic and spare, but modern and comfortable. Please do note that many of the cabins are in the woods, and require an uphill walk. If mobility is an issue for you, please contact me when you register. We can accommodate most dietary restrictions within reason, just alert us to your needs in advance.
There are ten private cabins available. You can make this choice at registration. However if you do not get a private cabin, I can assure you there is plenty of room in each cabin for two or three adults.
A supply list will be sent out at least a month in advance of your arrival in Maine.
Otherwise, all you have to do is get yourself here, I'll take care of the rest. I will send out recommendations for what to wear and bring in advance. I send very detailed emails about how to get here, what to bring, how to prepare. Read them when they show up, most everything you could need will be in there…
The food at camp is fresh, simple, wholesome, and satisfying. Please notify me of food allergies, or if you are Vegetarian (specify if you do/do not eat dairy, eggs, fish, etc…) , but we suggest that unless you have a specific medical condition, you will find plenty to nourish you during your time at camp.
Medomak Retreat Center is in Washington, Maine, about 80 minutes from the Portland airport, 3 hours drive from Boston, 7 hours drive from NYC. Washington is only 30 minutes inland from Camden. The campus has 250 acres of blueberry fields and forest, with trails for hiking, tennis courts, and lakefront where canoes and kayaks are available. The cabins are clean and spare and perfectly comfortable.
After five years of working with Covid as a complication I continue to take it seriously. I require everyone to be vaccinated as recommended by the CDC in the Fall of 2024. I do not hold any stock in the current DHHS/CDC guidelines. If you have attended in previous years I know you have been responsible up to the last valid recommendation. I will not ask for your records this year. For anyone attending for the first time this year (’26) I will need to see your records from the inception of the vaccines in 2021 to the last reliable advice from the CDC in Fall of 2024. There are no exceptions to this policy. Please be sure you know where your records are before you register. If you have chosen to be vaxxed in the Fall of 2025 I will be extra happy, and we will be that much safer as a community.
I will ask all who are traveling to be diligent in their masking protocol. All should be extra careful a week in advance of Camp. These measures are taken to keep us all safe, and allow us to relax into our Making practice. I will have protocols in place in case of a positive test. That protocol will be shared in advance of gathering.
In order to give you some time to check, and double check, your schedule, and confer with partners, bosses, children, parents, and pets, to make sure this will work for you, I delay the opening of registration. This year registration will open Sunday March 1st at 3:00pm EST. I will send an email to my newsletter group when registration opens. If you want to be notified when registration is open, you should sign up for the newsletter, spots have gone quickly in the past….. You will need to pay a non-refundable deposit of $400 to register, and then arrangements can be made for how to pay your balance.
[Deposits are non refundable, but registrations are transferable. All efforts will be taken to accommodate Covid changes, but the virus moves in mysterious ways, and is good at outmaneuvering me. I ask for your patience and forbearance in dealing with these changes.]