How to hoop hard to hoop items. Begin with one layer of Jenny Haskins Dissolve Magic Sticky. Cut your stabilizer so it is at least one inch larger that the hoop on all sides.

One side, with the name Jenny Haskins is just a protective paper. Once in the hoop, use a brass stiletto or old sewing machine needle to score the paper from corner to corner.

Carefully pull the paper on the lines you just scored. Now you have exposed the sticky stabilizer. Now just press your project onto the sticky. This works on the quilted jacket that I want to embroider buttonholes on.

This technique is great for heavy terry cloth towels, quilts, and baseball hats.

What’s New?

We have four new Jenny Haskins design sets. The newest design set is Sandy Orient Express. This beautiful quilt was made by a good friend of Jenny’s. It is a perfect quilt for anyone that has never quilted before! All the embroidered appliqué use Jenny’s embroidered-decoupage technique so there is no chance of not having a perfectly beautiful quilt.

• Quilt-a-matic – It is so easy, you do the quilting in the hoop and join the block with the Jenny-join method. What could be easier or more colorful?
• Fiesta – It’s another quilt created by Simon. If you came to Simon’s class in March at Sew-Ciety, you saw this quilt in work. This quilt is beautiful with the luscious fabric and colors used. Jenny and Simon show you how easy it is to make this beautiful quilt.
• I Need a Little Christmas – This is Jenny’s first ever holiday collection. This advent calendar incorporates Jenny’s magic quilting in the hoop, with cutting lines, so no measuring is required, Jenny-join and Jenny embroidery decoupage technique.

New Fabric!

• Biscotti by SPX Fabric – Let Biscotti bring you back to memories of coffee dates with friends. Warm yourself by the fire on long winter nights and have a biscotti with your coffee. This sweet line includes a main fabric with coffee cups full of cookies with words like “broken cookies don’t have calories” and “I never met a cookie I didn’t like”. Companion fabrics include coffee flowers, latte foam, and special coffee words.
• Frogs by Macower UK Fabric – Have a party of frogs and friends at the hottest party pond in town. Brightly colored blues and greens are perfect for boys who just want to have fun. Collection features a panel with frogs and friends, a medium scale of picture frames with frogs, frogs on lily pads, and tossed frog salad.
• Faux Leather by General Fabric Company – This fabric is hand washable and can be a great accent in purses and electronic cases.

  Winterberry Panel by Red Rooster – Back in stock! Hurry down if you missed it when we had it in stock the last time.

New Patterns!

• Chopsticks by Jay Bird Quilts – Large and small triangles weave a festive Asian flare with this crisscross of another kind. Perfect for a sushi picnic, you’ll want to pick up Chopsticks and dive right in. Sizes from baby to king. Check out Jenny’s sample at the store. Class coming in January.
• Southwind Designs – we have two new bag patterns from Southwind Design, Curvy Windmill bag and Zig Zag bag. These bags feature the unique curve technique found in all Southwind Design quilts. If you love Jeanette’s Dance of the Dragonfly you will love these bags!
• The Big Curvy Bag by Elisa – This big curvy bag features you guessed it, curves and guess who will be teaching it in the winter semester, the bag lady Louann.
• WISH LIST – We have the new holiday wish list in the store, stop by and fill yours out, bring the addresses of your family and friends and we will mail a postcard to them on your behalf.

Time is running out and sew are seats for Alix’s classes. If you cannot make the hands on classes be sure not to miss the “passion for sewing” trunk show! Alix Graham-Michel will be visiting our store to share with you all the new exciting hidden treasures from Viking and Pfaff including new products and the new update of the 5-D Embroidery Software.

She will show you how to take your sewing to the next level, answer all your questions, dispel your doubts and get you energized and inspired. Alix has a knack for creating easy and fun to do projects that look like boutique ready goods. Alix will demonstrate and explain and your eyes will be opened to the accessories, software and features that make your sewing machine so amazing. You will find out what a “3-hole yarn foot” is for, and its many uses, and why “Design Shaping” and Design Positioning are a sewers secret weapon… And even discover the sewing star hidden within. It will be a day to remember that will have you asking for more!!

Thimbleberries Club 2012 in now forming. Registration is $40 and includes your book, class instructions, door prizes, snacks and much more. Brenda is back and you won’t believe how tall she is…really!! Classes start in January will meet on the third Friday and Saturday of each month. Pick you day but is ok to bounce around as your schedule dictates.

Check out the pictures from the latest mystery at Sew-ciety

We have two color ways to select from.

New Saturday Sampler starts Saturday, October 2nd at 9:00 am. We have two color ways and still have a few kits left. The Sampler includes a notebook with complete quilt instructions for three settings. See the latest and greatest notions, books, fabrics and patterns each month. Complete your quilt on schedule and enter to win a sewing machine. Prizes every month. Need help on a block??? Join us for the Saturday Sampler Sew In on the third Thursday evening of each month.

This is Serifina from Maywood. Second colorway is Martique from Moda.

Martinique from Moda

About last night:

We saw a quick demo on the new Ruby. Think of the Ruby as an SE with a big ten inch throat and lots more new features. It was love at first sight. See the complete list of features in the previous blog.

5D Software-WOW!!!!! As promised, the new software is indeed amazing. I will try to describe just a few items I was amazed with.

The Background Wizard: Now you load your project BEFORE you start creating your embroidery. For example, you take a picture of your project, open the wizard and determine actual size of the area for embroidery. Then you create while the project is in your hoop background. You can see if it will fit immediately and re-size if need be. You don’t have to go to Vision to check it out…..

Project Split Wizard-Create your project area and hoop and be amazed by the Project Split, larger tolerance area for split.

Font Preview Box-On the design page…..no need to click the camera to preview the font!

Design Creator-Hotter and even better than before. You can see the embroidery file in Design Creator instead of Can file.  You can easily add Multicolor gradient……(have to show you that one)….Uses vectors…amazing …..you can reshape an area by just grabbing and dragging…I had to lift my chin off the floor on that one.

5D Portrait -It was amazing ….I couldn’t even try to explain what happened there!

Inspira Cutwork Needle Set- This was presented in a red gift box from the head R&D engineer from Sweden. The needles are actually knifes. The set comes with a CD with instructions and a few designs. So the design starts to stitch(works on any Designer Series), it out lines the areas that will be cutwork. You put in the “needle” and it cuts that area. So, during the part of the cutwork process where you would remove the hoop and cutout the fabric with scissor…..the Cutwork Needle set does the work. COOL!

We are off to meetings and classes so we will update details as time permits! Happy Sewing!

Oh Oh, new 200 x 200 hoop!!!!!!!!!

The Ruby has just started to sparkle! If you are looking for a new sewing and embroidery jewel here are the details.

Designed and engineered in Sweden, the DESIGNER RUBY™ sewing and embroidery machine offers a wide array of features. Touch and customize your embroideries and stitches on the vibrant interactive color screen with ease. Now that your true love has arrived it is time to create one-of-a-kind garments, quilts and home decor.

Learn how to use the Walking Foot in this short video from Sew-ciety.