Been sewing for nearly 30 years...
Have y'all heard of the American Sewing Guild? (
http://www.asg.org). I'd thought that you had to be GOOD at sewing to join, so I waited until I considered myself "intermediate" and then found out that it's for people
interested in sewing (skill level is NOT required, just interest). The local ASG group has several special interest groups that meet every month and they're awesome for learning new skills or for meeting with other people who know how to do sewing-related thing you may not know (yet).
http://columbiariversewing.org/ There USED to be a Greater Portland Area Sewing Guild (I had been a member), but they dissolved. It would be fun to restart the Guild in a modified form - all we need to do is to arrange a place & time to meet and we're golden. The challenge is finding a location. Not too many people are interested in opening their homes to random people, nor are we willing to PAY to rent space to hold meetings.
If the meetings are at a convenient time/location for me, I'd be happy to help out with my sewing / fitting experience.