Serge your ‘art out: A serger-cally enhanced life

April 16th, 2013

“Serge your ‘art out: A serger-cally enhanced life”

Coming up very soon we have a dynamic lady from Australia named Ann van der Kley coming to a few of our stores to inspire us. “Anne is a pioneer in contemporary textile techniques in the 21st century— her major tool, the humble overlocker.”

"Serge your ‘art out: A serger-cally Enhanced Life"

Anne is a pioneer in contemporary textile techniques— her major tool, the humble overlocker.

At Sew Expo, I was fortunate to spend some time with Anne and I must say she is truly a delightful kick in the pants! She will keep you laughing!

Anne is so energetic and wonderful ideas just seem to gush from her! I wish I had had a big bucket with me to catch all of her ideas – unfortunately my bucket happens to have a hole in it and just doesn’t seem to retain as much as I wish it would. I will try to remember to get a new bucket before she arrives at our stores!

If you are not acquainted with Anne, she is a “Fibre Artist, Author, Tutor, Edutainer in contemporary textile techniques”. When you attend her seminar/trunk show, you will surely find yourself in amazement at the creative ideas she shares and the results she obtains from a serger. She has created ways to incorporate a serger with knitting, crochet, and even create all types of unique fiber masterpieces.

As you are waiting for her trunk show, make sure to check out her blog on her website.

Anne will be bringing a trunk show full of her innovative techniques and ideas to share with us. Take advantage of having Anne here in the states and learn how to open up the creative potential that are possible with your serger.

You won’t want to miss her!

See you there!

Reva

Puyallup Sew Expo is Feb 28 to March 3, 2013

February 19th, 2013

Did you know the nation’s largest event for sewing enthusiasts takes place right here in the Pacific Northwest? The Sewing and Stitchery Expo is a non-profit educational event that features inspirational seminars daily, hands-on workshops, style shows and vendors from all over the country with booths that specialize in the latest in fabrics, tools, and supplies! This year Sew Expo will be taking place February 28 – March 3rd at the Puyallup Fairgrounds. In addition to all the daily happenings, special guests, such as, Nancy Zieman, Mary Mulari, and the “Hot Fusing Chicks” will be flying in to make special appearances . Nancy and Mary will be presenting their second “Kick it Up a Stitch” and if you joined them last year, you know how much fun time with them can be! in addition, television host Ellen March, will be conducting a live audition for her television show “Sew it All”!

Be sure to check out Sew Expo’s website for all the details you need to know about the show. You can download a registration brochure which features all the seminar and class descriptions. Additionally you can register for the daily seminars on the Expo website. You can purchase Sew Expo tickets at all Quality Sewing locations while supplies last. Pre-sale tickets are only $10.00, they will be $12.00 the day of. The Sew Expo website also features an updated blog and some fun links including:

Pillowcase Patrol As a part of the “Million Pillowcase Project”, the 2013 Sewing & Stitchery Expo will be a collection point for handmade pillowcases. Create cheerful pillowcases for the children who are undergoing treatment at Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital. Check out the Expo web site to download your free pillowcase pattern. Expo collected more than 5,000 pillowcases last year. How many more can we give this year?

Be Sure to Visit the Quality Sewing Booths – This year we will have an exciting notions and threads booth in the Pavilion. We have been shopping and negotiating with our various vendors for several months to bring you an amazing array of hot buys! We have combed our stores for close-outs and one-of-a-kind items that will all be priced to sell fast. We will also feature the new items that Nancy Zieman and Sue Hausmann will show in their seminars, all at special Expo prices.

We have many sewing experts on-hand this year and this will be a great opportunity to meet them. Across from the notions booth in the Pavilion, we have multi-needle embroidery expert George Moore and special guests long arm quilting expert Denise Applegate-Schober. Be sure to visit Simon Haskins, all the way here from Australia, over in the Showplex building. He will be showing his amazing techniques and designs along with his brand new designs that have just been released. In the Showplex, you will also find our main booth which will be filled with awesome special on machines and Floriani products. Across from our main booth, we will have special guest Ed Moore, the lead designer for Koala Cabinets. This event is not to be missed as it only happens once a year! View our 2013 Sew Expo Buyers Guide that showcases some of the fabulous deals to be had at this year’s event.

New Features of the Brother DreamWeaver Machines!

October 8th, 2012

Brother’s new V-Series machines—the DreamWeaver Innov-is VQ3000 sewing & quilting machine; and the DreamWeaver XE Innov-is VN6200D sewing, quilting, & embroidery machine—have some amazingly innovative, industry-first features. Here are just a few:

Droplight

Advanced Droplight™ Embroidery Positioning Marker

Trying to guess where to drop the needle is a nightmare of the past with V-Series! Use the embroidery foot with LED pointer to easily see your needle drop position. No more guessing or raising the needle up and down to test. It is also helpful while using the stitch forward and backward keys.

MuVit

MuVit™ Digital Dual Feed System

The new MuVit™ Digital Dual Feed can powerfully feed fabric from the top AND bottom. This digitally-controlled, direct motor driven accessory foot was designed for difficult projects which require special handling – so you can rest assured that your ability to move it smoothly is just a touch away. Adjust the speed of the belt right on the LCD display screen. This makes it incredibly easy to sew precise, uniform stitches on a range of fabrics like leather, faux fur and silk.

Sew-Straight

Sew Straight™ Laser Vision Guide

One of the biggest challenges for quilters and sewers is sewing straight. This built-in laser gives you the straight and narrow to a straight line. The laser light moves in half millimeter increments within a 14mm area, and can be positioned on either side of the foot. A must-have feature for quilters doing piecing, edge joining, pintucking and for aligning multiple lines of stitching.

Vsonic

V-Sonic™ Pen Pal System

You use the sensor pen to place your embroidery pattern automatically by touching the desired center and upper portions on the fabric. For precise corners and borders, touch two points on the edge line of the pattern’s embroidery square field to align it easily. It also helps to set placement points for sewing.

Stop by your local Quality Sewing & Vacuum Center to see the new DreamWeaver and DreamWeaver XE in action—you’ll be amazed!

Announcing Wednesday Trick-or-Treat Giveaways on Facebook!

October 3rd, 2012

Every Wednesday in October (starting today) we are going to be holding a giveaway drawing on our Facebook page! To enter the drawings, simply follow the instructions on that Wednesday’s Facebook post. Winners will be randomly selected from all who enter.* 

Then on October 31st we’ll have our Grand Prize drawing! Anyone who enters into any of the other Wednesday Trick-or-Treat giveaways is automatically entered into the Grand Prize drawing. But you can also earn extra entries!

How? Simply by sending us photographs of your Halloween Crafts! You can either post a photo on our Facebook page or email it to us at halloween@qualitysewing.com. Each photo you share will give you an extra entry into the Grand Prize Drawing (limit of 5 extra entries). 

So if you’re on Facebook but haven’t yet liked us, please go to our Facebook page here and click the “Like” button. Plus, once you “Like” us you will get to see all of the fun stuff that people post to our page!

If you aren’t on Facebook, you can still participate by emailing halloween@qualitysewing.com your photo. Or you can take your crafts into any of our 14 stores so that we can take the photos and upload them for you!

We can’t wait to see what spooky, fun and tricky crafts you are up to this month!

*Limit one winner per week. Free gifts cannot be redeemed for cash.

Community Outreach: Sewing With Calvary Chapel of Olympia

August 24th, 2012

The Calvary Chapel of Olympia is involved with various ministries that reach out to homeless folks in their community. Recently they reached out to women who find themselves on the street or in a shelter environment. They invited these women to their church, and provided fabric and supplies in order for them to sew themselves a simple pillowcase (they also gave out new pillows for these ladies to use with their cases).

But in order to allow each woman the opportunity to sew, Calvary Chapel needed sewing machines! So Quality Sewing was more than happy to step up and provide several Brother NS40s for the ladies to use.

The event was a wonderful experience for these women, some of whom had never used a sewing machine before! Everyone left with a new, clean pillow and a question: when could they do this again?

Here are some photos from the event:

Quality Sewing is proud to be a part of community service events like these. If you are planning a community outreach or community service event and you need some sewing machines to be a part of it, please don’t hesitate to contact us with the details.

Happy sewing!
~Chris

Favorite Photos from Sew Fun March 2012

April 24th, 2012

Every month each of our Quality Sewing & Vacuum centers hosts a Sew Fun lecture/demo class that is Free for Sew Fun Members (if you don’t know about Sew Fun, be sure to learn more about Sew Fun Classes & Memberships).

A big part of each Sew Fun is the show & tell, and photos are taken of the wonderful creations that get displayed. I’ve gone through and picked my 10 personal favorite photos from Sew Fun March 2012 show & tell from amongst all the stores. Here they are:

From AAA Burien

From AAA Burien

From Ballard

From Ballard

From Bellingham

From Bellingham

From Everett

From Everett

From Federal Way

From Federal Way

From Kirkland

From Kirkland

From Mount Vernon

From Mount Vernon

From Puyallup

From Puyallup

From Silverdale

From Silverdale

From Tacoma

From Tacoma

Aren’t those amazing? If you’d like to see more, we post the full photo sets on Facebook, and you don’t even have to be a Facebook member to view them:

AAA Burien Sew Fun March 2012 Album
Ballard Sew Fun March 2012 Album
Bellevue Sew Fun March 2012 Album
Bellingham Sew Fun March 2012 Album
Everett Sew Fun March 2012 Album
Federal Way Sew Fun March 2012 Album
Issaquah Sew Fun March 2012 Album
Kirkland Sew Fun March 2012 Album
Mt Vernon Sew Fun March 2012 Album
Northgate Sew Fun March 2012 Album
Puyallup Sew Fun March 2012 Album
Silverdale Sew Fun March 2012 Album
Tacoma Sew Fun March 2012 Album

If you are on Facebook and don’t already “like” us, be sure to click the like button here to keep up-to-date with all the tips, projects, photos, deals, and more that we post there daily:

And be sure to sign up for a Sew Fun Membership if you haven’t already. It’s an amazing value: Free Sew Fun classes plus a free gift at each seminar, 20% off accessories all the time, discounts at local fabric stores, and we often give discounts to in-store special events for Sew Fun Members too.

What do you think? Do you like these photo choices? What would you have chosen differently for your Top 10? Let us know!

Happy Sewing,
Chris

Watch New Episodes of “It’s Sew Easy” Online Now!

April 17th, 2012

You can now watch the PBS sewing show “It’s Sew Easy” online!

Watch this episode on the It's Sew Easy website!

Watch this episode on the It's Sew Easy website!

Visit the It’s Sew Easy website anytime all week long to watch the latest episode. New episodes are posted every Friday.

“It’s Sew Easy” is a wonderful show full of wonderful tips, tricks, and project how-tos. From their website:

Welcome to It’s Sew Easy where our many experts break sewing into manageable parts as they share their own unique style in projects and techniques. Whether you’re a novice or experienced sewer, It’s Sew Easy will enhance your sewing skills so you can create personalized apparel and home accents.

Now that they’re posting new episodes on their website every week, it makes it much easier to watch. You don’t have to worry about trying to catch it when it airs, or trying to record it; you can watch it at your leisure any time during the week.

Happy Sewing,
Chris

My Favorite Time-Saving Features of the Brother PR-1000

April 13th, 2012

A while ago I wrote about how excited I was to get the new Brother PR-1000 and how much time I thought it would save me. It has done that and much more.

The Brother PR-1000 Multi-Needle Embroidery Machine

LED Indicator Lights

LED Indicator Lights

There were some things that I didn’t realize would be so useful:

One favorite feature is the way the machine remembers what colors I have on the spools. When a new design is selected it highlights the spools that need to be changed for the next design. For example: I was doing a set of designs from a collection. All the designs had similar colors with just a few changes for each design. As soon as the new design was selected the colors that needed to be changed were highlighted in blue, making it very quick for me to get the new thread colors in position. It remembered that Prussian Blue was on spool 3, and even though Prussian Blue was the first color in the new design it was automatically assigned to spool 3 instead of me having to move it to spool 1 or manually re-assign it myself. In many cases I only needed to change 2 or 3 colors for the new design.

The Name Drop feature has saved me more time than I dreamed possible, especially when it is teamed with the LINK function. The Name Drop feature lets you save series of names that it will place in the proper position on a design. As soon as a design is completed a message pops up and asks, “Do you want to do the next design?” If “OK” is selected the finished design will clear and the next name in the queue will load in the next design automatically. I used a design from an Anita Goodesign holiday collection with Name Drop and completed a monogrammed Christmas stocking for every member of the family. Everyone loved them!

Aligning with the Snowman

I have done plenty of large designs using the FF jumbo hoop and the alignment system in PE Design. I’ve never had problems with alignment, but I was careful and followed a “procedure” to make sure it lined up prior to stitching. Now I just divide the design in PE Design NEXT and let the Snowman® do the alignment. This requires no thinking on my part. I just need to be able to read and follow the simple steps that are displayed on the screen!

- – - – -

If you have a multi-needle machine, what are your favorite features? If you don’t have a multi-needle embroidery machine, be sure to stop by your local store and take a look at one in action. You’ll be amazed at how much time you can save!

Happy Stitching,
Carol

Easter Weekend Sewing Projects Roundup

April 6th, 2012

Well, it’s Easter weekend, so just as I did for Valentine’s Day, I’ve compiled some of my favorite free tutorials and patterns for Easter sewing projects! Take a look at these and let them inspire you:

Bunny Candy Pouch Easter Eggs Bunny Bag
Jelly Bean Garland Rabbit Bag Tutorial Bunny Hat
Quilted Easter Bunny Basket Bunny Toss Floppy-Eared Bunny Purse
Easter Dishtowel Skirt Marshmallow Peeps Marshmallow Peep Bunnies
  1. Easy Bunny Candy Pouch Tutorial
  2. Plush Easter Egg Sewing Tutorial
  3. Bunny Bag Pattern
  4. Jellybean Garland Tutorial
  5. Zakka-Inspired Rabbit Bag Tutorial
  6. Baby Bunny Hat Tutorial
  7. Quilted Easter Bunny Basket
  8. Bunny Toss Game Sewing Tutorial
  9. Floppy-Eared Bunny Purse Pattern
  10. Easter Dishtowel Skirt Tutorial
  11. Marshmallow Chick Plushies Tutorial
  12. Marshmallow Bunnies Sewing Tutorial

What are your sewing projects for this year’s Easter? Share in the comments please, or email a photograph to info@qualitysewing.com or post it on our Facebook wall. And if you try any of these projects, please let us know how they turned out!

Happy Easter Sewing!
~Chris

Favorite Photos from Sew Fun February 2012

March 16th, 2012

Every month each of our Quality Sewing & Vacuum centers hosts a Sew Fun lecture/demo class that is Free for Sew Fun Members (if you don’t know about Sew Fun, be sure to learn more about Sew Fun Classes & Memberships).

A big part of each Sew Fun is the show & tell, and photos are taken of the wonderful creations that get displayed. I’ve gone through and picked my 10 personal favorite photos from Sew Fun February 2012 show & tell from amongst all the stores. Here they are; click on any of them to see them full-sized:

From AAA Burien

From Ballard

From Bellevue

From Everett

From Everett

From Federal Way

From Federal Way

From Mt Vernon

From Mt Vernon

From Northgate

From Northgate

From Puyallup

From Puyallup

From Silverdale

From Silverdale

From Tacoma

From Tacoma

Aren’t those amazing? If you’d like to see more, we post the full photo sets on Facebook, and you don’t even have to be a Facebook member to view them:

AAA Burien Sew Fun Feb 2012 Album
Ballard Sew Fun Feb 2012 Album
Bellevue Sew Fun Feb 2012 Album
Everett Sew Fun Feb 2012 Album
Federal Way Sew Fun Feb 2012 Album
Issaquah Sew Fun Feb 2012 Album
Kirkland Sew Fun Feb 2012 Album
Mt Vernon Sew Fun Feb 2012 Album
Northgate Sew Fun Feb 2012 Album
Puyallup Sew Fun Feb 2012 Album
Silverdale Sew Fun Feb 2012 Album
Tacoma Sew Fun Feb 2012 Album

If you are on Facebook and don’t already “like” us, be sure to click the like button here to keep up-to-date with all the tips, projects, photos, deals, and more that we post there daily:

And be sure to sign up for a Sew Fun Membership if you haven’t already. It’s an amazing value: Free Sew Fun classes plus a free gift at each seminar, 20% off accessories all the time, discounts at local fabric stores, and we often give discounts to in-store special events for Sew Fun Members too.

What do you think? Do you like these photo choices? What would you have chosen differently for your Top 10? Let us know in the comments!

Happy Sewing,
Chris