About Me
I have been crafting as long as I can remember, but always with thread of some sort. My mother was an expert seamstress and made most of my clothing including Prom gowns. When I moved away from home, I had to learn to sew.
I was now living in northern Manitoba, Canada with no shopping nearby.
My first sewing machine was a basic model from Sears. Then when my first child was born in 1977, I bought a Singer. I can’t remember the name of it, but it was one of the first electronic machines. I was so excited that I got a speeding ticket on my way home from the store! I am still using the cabinet I bought with it.
In the late 80s, the machine Embroidery Bug bit me. My dream was to make beautiful table linens and children’s dresses. I bought a Husqvarna, with cards of decorative stitches that you would use to make Pictograms. A short time later, the next model came out with an embroidery hoop and I was so envious!
Finally in 2000, I got my “dream” machine: A Pfaff 7570 with an embroidery hoop, and my journey into machine embroidery began! What an exciting journey it is, with so many twists and turns in the road! I still use the Pfaff for sewing; I made my daughter’s wedding gown with it. Now THAT was another journey into the unknown!!!
In 2004, the Brother ULT 2003 was the next machine I purchased; a much more user friendly embroidery machine and it came in Technicolor! I made designer tote bags, baby quilts, wall hangings, and embroidered everything that would stay still long enough and that I could hoop, even toilet paper, I used that Brother so much in the first year, my deal told me "It isn't meant to be used so much!" The entire light had to be replaced because it melted! It is also on its second motherboard; what a workhorse that machine is!
In August of 2007, I bought a Babylock EMP 6, which is a six needle machine. It is so much easier to set the machine up and do something else while it stitches happily away. I took another turn on the creative road; my wall hangings turned into art quilts.
My wall hangings turned into Art Quilts; it was so much easier to set the machine up and do something else while it stitched happily away.
Next came the Brother Entrepreneur 1000 with ten needles, a camera for exact multihooping and a huge 7 x 14 hoop! I resisted even watching a demo for many months…….but that Bug was under my skin again. In December of 2010 it came home to my little basement sewing ‘studio’.
By now my Brother ULT that I take to classes and Retreats is wearing out……so a Pfaff Creative Vision is my newest machine. It comes with a 14x 14 hoop!
My passion for creating continues to burn strong and bright! Fiber Art Quilts are the next projects on my horizon...after I finish an embroidered Monkey quilt for my Great-nephew and a Jenny Haskins Fabricadabra Quilt for me. (The Fabricadabra is made in dupioni silk and will be sashed with left over pieces of silk satin from my daughter’s wedding gown.)
So many ideas in my head…so little time to create! I guess I will have to retire...again. (I tried that once, but had to feed my embroidery habit!) And that Bug keeps biting me…..
I would like to say a little bit about my studio. It truly is in my unfinished basement. I have a space about the size of a small bedroom, and it is very cramped and loaded full of supplies. A big bright specially designed studio with built-in cabinets and lots of windows would be wonderful, but it is the creativity within you that counts, not the space you use to make it happen! There are thousands of “Cellar Dwellers” out there, creating wonderful things. Don’t let your space limit you….