October Flew By!!

Greetings! my goal is to bring you news once a month and today I realized it is the last day of October! Happy Halloween. Once your kids grow up and grandchildren are far away, this “holiday” loses much of its luster!

Our trips to Michigan and the Northeast were terrific! We saw many sewing and quilting friends at the American Stitches Show in Novi and the next week at the Country Stitches stores in East Lansing and Jackson!

Then on to the Northeast with stops in Watertown, Cobleskill, and Bayside, New York and Portland, Maine. We have not traveled much in the Northeast so we met many new friends and enjoyed every minute of our trip except when we had car problems twice—but that is another story—too long for this blog!

We enjoyed a stop visit with free-lance Educator Deb Yedziniak in Manlius, NY where Deb took us to all the great sewing stores and more. Fortunately this is where our car died the first time. Deb is the educator known for developing the stitches for machine smocking that were first on the Husqvarna Viking and now can be found on many machines. Deb is a talented hand and machine sewer, lace, doll, antique and more collector. (Sound familiar? I share all those loves!) We met all her “girls”. These are her dolls arranged in seasonal vignettes. I wish I had pictures to show you! Next time!

From Deb’s we went to the American Textile History Museum in Lowell, MA. What a wonderful museum!! We spend almost a day viewing the exhibits, watching the films and enjoying the textiles. I especially enjoyed the “Harwood Stieger Exhibit”. This textile artist from Tubac, Arizona designed and screen printed fabrics mostly with Southwestern prints. My grandmother took me to the store in Tubac, AZ in the 50’s and I remember making “shifts” and “shirtwaist dresses” for my grandma, my mom and me from his fabrics. I’m looking for a home for my personal textile and lace collection and plan to contact them about it.

Last stop was a program for Mainely Sewing in Portland, Maine. Owner Jean Libbey has been a friend for many years so I was excited to be able to get to her store this year. The hotel was lovely (this was a good thing as we were stuck extra days thanks to the car issues) and even put America Sews on the outside billboard. Here you see Jean’s customers gathering and sharing the joy of sewing. Herb enjoyed a Maine lobster dinner!

It has been fun to show the new Embroidery Software program 5D Card Shop. I had the opportunity to make some videos and demonstrate some fun projects for this new 5D program that can be added to any 5D Embroidery Software. Go to http://www.5dlearningcenter.com/ watch the videos and learn about this new fun software. I love that it is “sew” easy! Just a few clicks through the wizard and the card is finished and ready to embroidery. Special cards for special people. I enjoyed making a 4 sided card into a Get Well card plant bag and stitching a “potato bag” from a 2 sided card. The videos tell the story!

Once home my project was to embroidery redwork nativity ornaments. I took a nativity embroidery collection and in my 5D Editor rmoved the fill stitches so stitching the outlines only created the redwork. Our granddaughter and her classmates will color these and add them to a Log Cabin Christmas Tree Quilt to be auctioned at their school.

These next couple of weeks we are packing, packing, packing! The hardest part is deciding what to keep and what not to! We hope to get the majority of our “stuff” moved the end of November. I had cataract surgery on my left eye last week and am doing great, however no lifting so when I get a box full, Herb has to come move it. We will drive to Minneapolis, MN the third week in November and tow a trailer of furniture and more for our daughter. Nadya. She just bought a house and we will celebrate her birthday with her that week.

Our next program will be for Luke’s Sewing in Cinncinnatti, OH, on Thursday, November 10. This will be the third year we have presented a program for their annual big event and we are looking forward to seeing many of our Cinncinnatti friends! Then we will be at Luella’s Quilt Basket in Redondo Beach, CA on Wednesday, November 30. These will be all day programs. We would love to see you if you are in the area!

Our final event for the year will be Sew for the Season at the Cathey’s in Tucson, AZ Dec 9, 10 and 11. We will be sewing hands on Friday and Saturday and you will make several projects and a charity project for the holidays. Sunday will be a demo and fun day.