Best Sewing Vacation Ever, Part 2

Saturday was my big machine embroidery day at BU. I deliberately chose these classes because this is an area where I don’t have a lot of experience.

The first class was called “Go for the PRO!” and focused on embroidery using the 700 and 790 machines. The 700 is actually an embroidery-only machine—no feed dogs—and that was the machine I ended up using. The teacher was Mary Beck, who had taught Friday’s serger class. She really is an excellent teacher. I learned as much watching the teacher as I did taking the class.

Most of these BU classes are intended for dealers (and staff) to take back and teach at their stores. This normally would be a three-hour class, but Mary taught it in 1-1/2 hours. We learned about the different kinds of embroidery files and how to expand and compress designs. I think machine embroidery is very cool:

At the end of the class, each student had made a very cute tea caddy:

The other side has pockets for holding tea bags. I have to hand sew the top opening closed, which is why the clips are there.

Just before lunch, I had two short classes (30 minutes), one on the new stabilizers from Wonderfil and one on threads from Superior Threads. I am a Wonderfil educator, so I am a bit partial to their products.

My afternoon class was called “Embroider on Everything.” We were using the top-of-the-line Bernina 990 machines. That model retails for $23,000. The class was in one of the ballrooms where about 40 machines had been set up. However, the class had twice as many students as machines, so we had to partner with someone. I understand why Bernina structures it that way, but it’s not ideal, as you will see in a moment. 🫤

My partner was a staff member from a store in New York. She had more embroidery experience than me, which was not surprising considering I was starting from ground zero. We had to choose whether we wanted to be an Elk or a Bee. I chose Elk. Each of us had a kit with a tote bag, a hat, and a towel. The Bees got to use the machines first. While they embroidered a design on the tote bag, the Elks went to the back of the room to learn how to put the hat in the hoop. By the time we had accomplished that task, the Bees were done embroidering their tote bags and were supposed to relinquish the machines to the Elks.

I successfully embroidered my hat:

Once a hat and a tote bag were done, each student got to embroider a small towel. We used the magnetic hoops, which are very cool but also very dangerous to fingers. (One of the class aides pinched his finger in the hoop and had to put a band-aid on it because it was bleeding.) My machine partner embroidered her towel first. By the time I got my towel onto the machine, it was getting close to the end of class and the teacher and aides were hurrying the students along. I had just started embroidering “BERNINA” on my towel when my partner said, “Here, you need to take this spool of thread,” and reached up and snipped the thread.

Snipped.The.Thread. In the middle of the embroidery design. Fortunately, there is a way to tell the machine to go back and start at a previous stitching line. I think my partner was feeling bad about what she did, so she re-threaded the machine for me and got it going again. Unfortunately, she hadn’t rethreaded it properly and the needle broke. We had to call over a class aide, who deftly fixed the whole mess, but I wanted to say, “It wasn’t my fault!” I had to hurry, but I was able to finish embroidering my towel.

As unfortunate as my situation was, my friend Becky, also from our store, was paired with someone who wouldn’t relinquish the machine and insisted on doing all the embroidery herself. She also wanted Becky to take the embroidered pieces in trade for Becky’s (unused) kit. Some people are just rude. I think Becky and I need to sit down together and have our own class.

[Even if money were no object, I have no desire to purchase the Bernina 990. It truly is an amazing machine, but I don’t feel the affinity with it that I do with my 880. That’s just how it is with some machines. I’m already dreading the day when my 880 is no longer useable because I can’t get parts for it.]

After those two classes, I am feeling much more confident about attempting some machine embroidery on my own. I have also gotten some great advice from my friend Deana, who is visiting us with my other friend, Robert. They live in Tennessee but came out here for a few weeks to escape the heat. Deana has a 15-needle embroidery machine and does beautiful work.

I missed Saturday evening’s karaoke session because our financial advisor lives in Salt Lake City and I had made arrangements to have dinner with him. I heard that karaoke was quite entertaining, though.