To St. Louis and back!
Posted on Thursday, September 3rd, 2009, by Janet - Calico Gals store owner, gabby gal, newsletter editor, occasional piecer
Baby Lock Tech
Nina Dukette, the Calico Gals Sewing Machine Department Manager and I flew out to St. Louis last weekend for the annual dealers’ conference sponsored by Tacony Corp and Baby Lock Sewing Machines. It’s 3 days of classes that cover everything from new products to marketing to merchandising. I love it – especially the business classes. Nina really likes the hands-on sewing seminars and I have to admit, I enjoyed them, too! We stayed at the Hyatt, right across the street from the Gateway Arch. That was a bit of a distraction for me. I took the following photo from one of my classrooms.
Gateway Arch beckons
I have proof that I was able to focus. Check out this leaf:
Stippled leaf
It was a great class taught by Eileen Roche, the designer of the innovative Stipple! technique. In less than three hours, I had appliqued, quilted and pieced a three block tablerunner. Eileen has videos on her website, if you want to see it in action. Nina took the same class, so she has a tablerunner, too. Stop by the shop to see our samples in person! This dynamic quilt was made with the same technique:
Wouldn't this be great in those bold contemporary fabrics?
Now, take a close look at the next sample. How do you think I did that one?
Hand or machine stitched?
If you guessed machine, you were right. This is a sample from the new Baby Lock Sashiko machine. It is the first of it’s kind and it is truly incredible. This machine uses only a bobbin – no top thread at all. This is another one you will want to take a look at – first on the Baby Lock website and then in person at Calico Gals. We asked them to ship one to us right away. Yes – you can sit down and try it. You have to!
Ok – I’ll stop being a show-off and show you something Nina made. Isn’t this cute? Yes, we had fun sewing!
Nina's tag
If you are wondering why you never heard about our Embroidery Club, it’s because we don’t have one. YET. When we get into that new barn, we will get it going. We don’t want to be carrying those heavy machines up and down the stairs. Of course, that won’t be a problem in the new barn because the classroom is on the ground floor!
Back to St. Louis… It was Nina’s birthday while we there, so we celebrated with Sandy Pirdy. Remember Sandy from Creekside Fabrics? From Summer Sewing Spa? Oh… that Sandy! We walked to a restaurant called:
Believe it or not, it was pronounced “Calico’s.” The food was delicious. Just take a look at these happy gals sharing a piece of birthday cake that they couldn’t finish together!
We came home with lots of new ideas to get going in the old barn and carry on to the new barn. I plan to stop by the construction site and get some new photos this week. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with another builder’s inspiration.
Always look up.
