Isn’t it Fun to Learn Something New?

I finally got back to work today after two weeks on enforced “rest”.  It was lovely to be back doing something constructive.  Isn’t it strange how little you get done when you are thrown out of routine?  I would have thought I would have done so much but instead I sat around at home reading my wonderful Kindle, planning Term 4, watching TV, editing DVD’s and working on a hexagon quilt I started 1 1/2 years ago and now want to get finished.  But it wasn’t at all as productive as I thought it would be.

Thankfully being back at the shop has made me feel much more useful.  Today it was Jim’s half day, and Cathy spent the morning working with three new machine owners who were in the shop to do their second Let’s Go!  Let’s Sew! class.  It depends on what machine customers purchase as to how many of these great classes they attend, but today’s class is for anyone with machines that do decorative stitches.  They were making an Heirloom Pin Cushion, and it was so great to hear them being so excited about their new-found skills.

Cathy's sample of the Heirloom Pin Cushion.

The pincushion is personalized, but only after the students learned how to set their machine up for twin needle pin tucks, wing needle and then assorted decorative stitching.  I think we have several converts to wanting to learn more about Heirloom sewing which is great since we are investing heavily in beautiful French and Swiss laces, and the best quality Batiste, Pique, Linen and Silk fabrics.  It is so nice to be surrounded by so much loveliness!

Cathy working with our New Pfaff owners at their Let's Go! Let's Sew! class.

After Cathy finished teaching it was her turn to be the student while I taught her how to make an Heirloom Pillow Case on the Pfaff Hobbylock 3.0.  I think Cathy has fallen in love with that machine all over again!  Her Pillow Case is so pretty and she enjoyed it so much that she is going to teach the class for me.

Cathy making her Heirloom Pillow Case Sample.

Needless to say Jim arrived a little after 1pm and was full of praise for Cathy’s sewing … making me feel quite redundant after all.

I’ll be teaching again tomorrow, and then have just three classes to work with next week as Cathy fills in for me.  I had cortisone and local anesthetic injected into the hip-joint on Tuesday which was a bit scary, and need to rest until Thursday so that the injection has a good chance to work.  So far I think there is some improvement, but then again as I sit here typing the pain is setting in so we will just have to wait and see.

Happy sewing

Michelle

Oriental Border continues…

After an exciting evening at the local Basketball I got up early and started again on the digitizing. I thought you might like to see the latest improvements on my Oriental Border, which I think is about ready to be stitched out now. 

Oriental Border ... about ready to stitch out.

I am thinking that I’d like to make a table runner with this as the feature, or perhaps a table-cloth and make another design to place in the centre.  This is one of the great things about Machine Embroidery … the endless ideas and opportunities.

Of course in an ideal world I’d be able to watch basketball and digitize, but alas I think that my fanatic support of basketball would take all my concentration away from the computer, and goodness only knows what kind of mess would result.  Certainly I wouldn’t have gotten much done at last nights game which looked like being a walk over, and turned into a nail-biting finish.  I’m talking about the Swinburne Kilsyth Cobras, which are sponsored by Michelle’s Sewing Basket.  The women’s team lost to Dandenong in the first game of the nights double-header, but they were without a pivotal player.  The men started strong against Sandringham, but after a controversial foul and tech foul resulted in 5 from the stripe, the game turned on its head and the Cobras found themselves down by four when they had led by 20 or so for most of the game.  The final 1 minute had everyone holding their breath, and thank goodness the result went our way.  Good on you boys!

Ooops, as you can see very big basketball fan, and since my South Dragons are no more I’ve been supporting the Cobra’s.

As I said Michelle’s Sewing Basket are sponsors of the Cobra’s and we also supply the club with prizes from Singer, Pfaff and Husqvarna Viking to give away during the game.  The lovely Megan organizes this segment, and last nights competition was one for the history books.  A couple of small boys were asked to race, stopping to put on men’s size basketball shorts and singlet, before continuing to the hoop, with the first to shoot a goal winning the first prize, and the other child receiving the second prize. What Megan hadn’t counted on was the fact that no matter how much they tried the boys couldn’t keep their shorts up, and so as they ran to the ring, the shorts slipped down and under their feet.  Needless to say both boys ended up skidding across the court on their bottoms!  Not to be defeated they kept getting up and trying again with the same result.  Gosh times like that you wish you hadn’t left your camera at home!

Happy Sewing

Michelle

Digitizing my heart out ….

My physio has set me the very difficult task of resting.  Now I know the idea of sitting around eating chocolate and catching up on reading and tv would appeal to a lot of busy people, but to me resting is the most frustrating thing I have had to do in a long time!

Even worse I’m supposed to rest for another 2 weeks!  So what does a sewer do when she is advised to rest, and sitting at a machine is out of the question (because I can’t sit straight up or sitting forward like you do when you sew)?  She digitizes.

Since the beginning of the year I have been working on three different projects making DVD tutorials for people wanting to learn 5D Embroidery Software.  The first project was an Introduction DVD which is finished and available for sale both retail and wholesale (to sewing machine shops).  The second project was to create a series of 8 DVD’s called 5D Embroidery Mastery .. a series of 8 DVD’s working up skills using just 5D Embroidery Extra/Studio.  I’ve completed writing the course, and half of the classes are now finished on DVD’s.

The third project was creating ongoing tutorials for students looking to learn how to use 5D Design Creator.  Again three of these tutorials are now on DVD, and there are more to come.  These are the most challenging classes that I’m writing because my students are VERY advanced, and these students (that come to classes with me at the shop) are my test students.  This term we are working on Oriental designs. So far we have created a continuous Oriental border, which is looking darn lovely!  and today I finished off a beautiful Oriental Lady using the brilliant new feature MultiWave with 5D Design Creator.

Oriental Border .. still a work in progress.

It takes hours and hours to do these sessions, since I first have to dream up a design, then create a design, write the instructions and finally film the DVD.  Then I need to edit the DVD and burn these ready for Jim to print them.  What a process.

Tomorrow and Monday will be recording days (lets hope the house is quiet), but for today, the sun is setting and my work is done!

Happy sewing!

Michelle

First Installment of Free Quilt Pattern

I almost forgot to tell everyone about the new FREE Quilt pattern which you can download from my website.  Just follow this link … http://www.michellessewingbasket.com.au/webcontent3.htm

I made this beautiful quilt late last year and decided to share it with everyone for FREE to celebrate the shops 10th Birthday.  There will be 8 Patterns and I will try to be on the ball and put a new pattern on the website every month.

The first block is the medallion center.

 

Of course I know that you will want to see what the finished quilt looks like, so with apologies for the bad photography here it is …

The photography is indeed awful, but at least it will give you an idea of how it looks until I can get a better shot.  My favorite part is the last border which is done in a madeira applique style, which is lots of fun.  It looks very complicated but is a breeze when you know how to do it.

Happy sewing

Michelle

Quilts For Christchurch

Over this last term we have had two Quilting Bee’s to make quilts for the survivors of the February earthquakes that hit Christchurch in New Zealand.

We had so much help from so many people that it is very hard to know where to start to thank people!  We had a lot of donations from quilters all over the place, with quilt blocks, fabric and even whole quilt tops donated for the cause, as well as cash to cover the cost of sending the quilts to our contact in New Zealand.

We also had lots of happy hands who either attended the Quilting Bee’s or took quilt blocks to make the quilts in their own time. 

With so much help it was no wonder that we have managed to box up and send off 20 completed quilts!

We still have more blocks sitting in the classroom, and so Cathy and I have decided to organise 2 more Quilting Bee’s.  These will be held on July 9th 10am-2pm and on August 24th from 9.30am-4pm.  We hope to get some more quilts finished this time for the victims of Victorias massive flood crisis! 

Thanks also to Guitterman Threads who donated a stack of thread for our willing helpers to use.

Happy sewig

Michelle

Taking time to share sewing with friends … the 10th Annual Shop Retreat

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It is a gray and gloomy afternoon in Melbourne.  The fine misty rain seems to chill everything and I am grateful that the autumn leaves that still cling to the otherwise bare branches of the trees, add a little colour … Continue reading →

Forget the Boomtown Rats … I LOVE Mondays!

I love Monday’s.  On Monday’s I teach all day, and both of the lessons are my favorite things.  In the morning I teach Quilt Making to a group.  Most of these women have been coming for more than 9 years, although every now and then we lose a student and gain a new comer.  I always tell these lovely ladies not to tell anyone I’m their tutor … after all imagine how bad I must be that they have had to come for 9 years or more!!  Actually I think most of them come for the company, and they really have become good friends.

One of my newest students also Michelle has finished the quilt she started at the beginning of the year, a beautiful cot quilt with applique, which Michelle also quilted herself.  It looks so cute and I so wish I had my camera with me so I could share it with you, but alas I had left it at home. 

This group used to have a tradition of champagne when someone finished a quilt, but that stopped a long time ago, and we were more than happy with tea/coffee and lovely dark choc TimTams which were darling Jean’s birthday “cake”.

This afternoon was all about Embroidery Software.  Jim was away from the shop attending 5D Embroidery Teacher Training and I had the 3rd session of my 5D Embroidery Extra/Studio Mastery Course.  This course is designed by me and takes students though every aspect of this powerful Embroidery Software Package.  I’m so proud of the projects and even more proud of my fantastic DVD’s that mean that anyone can do the course no matter where they live.

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Today’s lesson explored the amazing “editing” tools, that enables you to delete small areas of the design, enlarge all or some parts of a design, and reduce the size of all or some parts of the design.  I was so pleased that everyone moved through the project so well, and so as a bonus we had time to look at changing the order of the stitchout and merging colours!  It was so exciting.

Jim’s class was a lot slower in pace, but he thinks he is ready to go to the machine and stitch out his samples.  He is very competitive so I feel a bit of rivalry coming on there!

The day wasn’t without the usual laughter and chatter.  And I was more than happy to give everyone an extra giggle, watching me navigate my Luggie Scooter through the classroom.  I was testing out to see if it helped me manage the pain in my hips, and low and behold it did!  Although I’m not too good at avoiding large obstacles, like tables, machine trolley bags and people!

Tonight I will be watching Project Runway, while burning my class video’s.  I’ve been making and editing my videos for the past 5 months, and am finally up and running with the production, which had caused so many problems!  There is an Introduction to 5D Software class (2 DVD’s and 1 CDrom with documents on it), the 5D Embroidery Mastery Course and my fantastic 5D Embroidery Software Club (for advanced students wanting to master 5D Design Creator).

We have a busy week this week, before we all head off for our 10th, and Final Shop Retreat, which will be this weekend. 

Happy sewing

Michelle