Best Sewing Vacation Ever, Part 1

I am back from Bernina University—with a post-BU detour to Seattle for a few days—and now it’s time to share everything I saw and did.

Our flight left Kalispell last Friday morning at 5:30 am. We were in Salt Lake City by 7:00 am. After a short van ride to the Hyatt Regency, we checked in, registered with Bernina, got our swag bags, and headed to the ballroom for the opening session. All six of us were wearing our quilted jackets/vests:

Sammy, in the middle, had entered her jacket in the fashion show, so she went backstage to get ready. The rest of us went and snagged our seats in the front row. Nick Verreos—Project Runway contestant and fashion designer—joined Bernina Exec Christy Burcham to host the fashion show:

Sammy and her jacket were a huge hit. People stopped our group many times throughout the weekend to compliment her on it. She used Tula Pink’s new line of fabric—Full Moon Forest—and included some really creative embroidery techniques.

After the fashion show, more Bernina execs came out to talk about the company, hand out awards, and give updates on new products. The 990 Pro, released last year, was a hard act to follow. This year’s new releases included updates to the 700-series line and a special Maker’s Edition of one of the Bernette serger/coverstitch machines.

We broke for lunch. After lunch, I had a class with Amanda Murphy, which was more of a product launch than an actual class, but at least I got to meet her in person.

My second afternoon session was a hands-on class on the new Maker’s Edition Bernette serger:

My only complaint about this class was that the machines had not been set up and tested beforehand. We were using the hemmer and binding attachments in coverstitch mode and they were quite fiddly and required several adjustments before they would work properly. That’s not unusual, but I don’t think it’s fair to the students to make them spend their class time doing a task that should have been done ahead of time. We also had to double up and move from machine to machine, round-robin style. I was able to make four of the five samples and called it good. Mary Beck was the teacher and she was excellent.

One of the nicest perks—and there were many—that Bernina provides to BU attendees is to give them a USB drive with every single handout from every single class, even the ones we weren’t enrolled in. That little thumb drive has a wealth of information on it, including the files on it to create sample cards for every technique on the Bernette and Bernina lines of sergers. I love that kind of stuff, so I am going to print out the cards and make those samples as a reference for my serger mastery classes.

There was no shopping at this event, per se, although dealers could place orders with vendors and see upcoming products before they are released. Bernina did have a BU Store, though, and I bought myself some fun Bernina-branded clothing, including a T-shirt and some socks. I also got a set of quilting rulers:

It’s hard to see, but the one on the left makes a Christmas tree and the one on the right makes a teardrop shape.

I have to say that Bernina fed us extremely well throughout the weekend. The evening reception featured so many great appetizers that we didn’t have to go out for dinner. Most of us were wiped out after a long day and made an early evening of it. And that was the end of Day 1. Day 2 was even more exciting, so stay tuned.