July 2009 - Posts

• What's growing in your garden?

  On a beautiful sunny afternoon last weekend I got to take a garden walk with my mom (red dress) .  As I am sure you can imagine, it was a pleasant way to spend a Saturday afternoon.  We were with my mom's fellow Garden Club members and in and amongst the ladies was my high school algebra teacher.  I couldn't decide if that was funny or depressing.  I decided not to consider how many things had happened to me since she was my algebra teacher. Instead I remembered how she broke her leg the day she started school and because of the nature of the fracture she had to stay home and we had a substitute teacher for about 6 mos.  I always blamed that experience on why I do not like algebra.  When I went back to school a few years ago to complete my degree, I cringed when they would not take my college algebra credits and I had to do it all over again....and to boot, this time I had to use the math function in my computer to post the probem.  If you have never done something like that take a word from the wise, "Don't!"  I think I aged 10 years trying to learn how to use that function in my computer.  I have some great photos of my husband and grandaughter that show the Photostitch function in PE-Design. As you can see by the photo above  flowers have a great potential in PE-Design as well.  I wanted to share these ideas with you so that all of you that have a version of PE-Design that has the Photostitch function built-in to it will take the time to learn how to use this fun feature. It really is not that hard and the new versions of PE-Design have a handy "wizard feature" that does all the work for you!  So the next time you have your digital camera out don't be afraid to take some photos of flowers and import them into PE-Design and create an original work of art!  If you have an old photo that you would like to experiment with simply scan the photo (many of today's printers have a scanning function or take the photo to photo retailer for scanning) and then import the digital form of the photo into PE-Design.  www.brothersews.com Remember you can use PE-Design with any embroidery machine manufactured by Brother, including you PR-600 machines!  So have fun! Well readers,  it is time for me to get back to my job and this week it entails getting everything ready to take to a photoshoot tomorrow and then continuing another big project with excel sheets that have 20,000 line items.  I am sure that none of you want to know about how to have that much fun! Take care and have a great day! June Posted Jul 24 2009, 10:45 AM by JuneMellinger with 2 comment(s) Filed under: machine embroidery, crafting, brother Quattro 6000D, PE700, PEDesign, brother pr-620, brother pe-700 embroidery machine, PE-Design, Duetta, Brother

• Girl Friend Get Togethers

  As it happens I have 2 daughter in laws who are quite entrepreneurial!  This week Kendal was invited to bring her Pampered Chef product to an event that had 50 attendees who also got to look at other wares that included aprons.  As it happens a local gal has begun a business making aprons, this got me to thinking….this apron thing is an opportunity for a whole new business.  Kendall already took her PC apron and glitzed it up with sewer's jewels so why not start making all kinds of cute aprons and sell them.  The photo shown is not the one I wanted to share with you but it will do!  It's for our friend Jared's deli! The one I really wanted to share was my son Greg wearing his apron that exclaimend "Stinky's Barbeque", its fun and he wears it to his neighborhood grill outs.  I happen to have an apron that has plenty of stories attached to it.  A friend who worked for Simplicity at the time made a pretty quilted apron for a Holiday auction and I bought it.  I still wear the apron despite the fact that it is thread bare and does not fit quite the way it used to. That doesn't matter, what does matter is what I was thinking about or doing all the times that I was wearing it. So my idea would be to take a thought from the scrapbooking business and make aprons that have pockets in them to hold your memories!  Have to share that idea with my other DIL.  For those of you that loved to sew you will love the new Circular Sewing Tool from Brother.  It is so cool.  Attach it to your Brother Sewing machine and  use those decorative stitches to sew in endless circles or create perfect layers of fabric that can be turned right side out to make easy and perfect flounces.  To learn more about this cool new tool visit  http://www.brothersews.com  and search for SACIRC1 or just click here. Last month I was reading a copy of Fons and Porters' Love of Quilting and saw a quilt dedicated to a Beatles fan.  I recenty recalled this story to my friend Jean Nolte who is the editor of this magazine:   Dear Jean I read your May/June issue and when I saw the “Beatles”  quilt.  I immediately started to look for a photo of a quilt that we saw on a trip to London a few years ago.  Imagine being singled out of a crowd to go down to the vault at the Hard Rock Café in London!  My husband and I  had just finished our dinner and we were invited to do just that.  What really blew my mind was to see a very important guitar belonging to Eric Clapton resting against a beautiful quilt.  I found it to be amazing to see a quilt among the rock memorabilia. It is probably fortuitous not to have found the picture until now anyway since this weekend my husband I got to go to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio.  Looking at the vast collection of rock star costumes I was surprised to see how quilted fabrics were often part of a coat or hat.  Interesting.  Jimi Hendrix had a jacket made of velvet squares quilted together.  I guess us quilters were meant to be swingers! So all you closet rockers get out your crazy fabrics and start quilting or sewing!  Have a great week!   June   PS my vacation was great....hot and sunny! Posted Jul 10 2009, 10:00 AM by JuneMellinger with 3 comment(s) Filed under: realize the dream, quilting, Brother