Anyone who reads the supermarket tabloids has been seeing all kinds of advice about the easy way to lose weight. I and a group of friends decided to follow one of the more popular diets.  We formed teams, printed out the diet plan, communicated every day and were positive that we would lose the weight.  Yes and no...Fortunately we can all laugh at our adventure.  Some of us lost weight, others just feel better but the best thing is that we have all become better friends. 

One thing we all admit that we learned is that we have to pay better attention to what we eat and where we put it.  That lesson is true for many things in life.   Certainly most of you have learned that you have to pay attention to the embroidery designs that you buy and where you store them.  How many times have you shook your head  after you swore you created a file for that special design that you have been looking high and low for and it is nowhere to be found.  Sorry to say that I don't have a loss-proof suggestion but I can say that if you take the time to set up an area in your computer that can hold the designs it will be time well spent.  I remember my friend Penny Muncaster Jewell telling all of us years ago to look at the My Document folder like a tree with branches.  Don't be afraid to create a folder and then make lots of subfolders.  It's okay to have Holidays>Month>Valentine's Day, President's, etc.  if you do get into a pickle and you can't remember where you put a file, go back to the saving process and look at where the default setting wants to put the file.  Chances are that is where you are going to find the file you have misplaced.  

Above all don't panic!  We didn't lose all the weight we hoped to in the first few weeks but we did benefit in many other ways.  You may have misplaced your file but the learning process to find it will teach you a few things. 

Another thing you should keep an eye on is how your embroidery designs are placed on a garment.  If you are lucky enough to own the Brother©  Quattro™ embroidery machine then you have the InnovEye™  camera-like feature to help with placement.  Other embroidery machine owners may not have realized the importance of using the plastic grids that come with Brother Embroidery machines or the template sheets

that come with most of the Brother Embroidery cards.  If any of my readers own a Brother Entrepreneur 6-needle embroidery machine with the cap frame (remember that the cap frame is an optional accessory) you will know about the neat feature on that model as well.  When you have the cap frame driver attached, the image to be embroidered is automatically turned upside down for you...no more mistakes. 

This month I heard from an old friend Cookie Gaynor.  You may know Cookie from her web site.  Cookie has lots of things to buy on her site including some helpful tutorials.  One of them is about how to embroider socks....Again placement is half the battle...her hint is to put a straight pin in the sock where the embroidery will be and be sure to have the head of the pin at the top of the embroidery.  Simple, but smart!   

I mention all of these little tips because at one time or another we have all sewed a pocket shut, embroidered something upside down, etc.  So keep an eye on what you are doing! 

Before I forget, don't forget that Brother is celebrating National Embroidery Month.

A visit to a participating dealer will help you find out special financing deals.  If you are unsure of where to shop or what all the specials are for this month, use the dealer locator at the Brother website. 

For my closing question...why is it that the supermarket magazines have at least two "call to action headlines on the cover of their magazine...one to lose weight and the other to try a fabulous chocolate cake?" 

 Regards,

June

PS. This month I finished a quilt that I began 5 years ago and one that I began 2 years ago and I started 2 new ones.  The lesson in all of this...when you buy something, always make sure that it has all the pieces to make it....ask me how I know.  Fortunately I was able to successfully contact the gal I bought the quilt kit from to get the missing fabric.  She was so nice!