We're down to the last few days in Florida.  Spring has almost arrived in Illinois and we will be packing up and travelling (albeit slowly) towards home in about a week.  It's been a fun winter, meeting with lots of friends, taking bunch of pictures Holly can digitize from, and learning everywhere about what it takes to make ATW an even better place for our members.

Someone asked to see a photo of me and I had to laugh because last fall I noticed there weren't any of me in the last few years that didn't include on of our "girls" in the picture. So I thought I would share one with her in this week's Bobbin-Buzz and at the same time with you.

The photo on the top right here was taken of me working one morning in my office back home. That's Onyx on my lap, where she parks herself every day for at least an hour of cuddling time. The love of a dog is a wonderful thing. :-)

Here's hoping you find those wonderful things in your days here too.

-- Larry

American Embroidery Conference Next Wednesday morning Holly will be leaving with Nita, Dot, Ina, Kelly, Anna... (and I know I'm missing two more people but I haven't had my coffee yet this morning!) ... for the AEC in Atlanta. This will be Holly's 4th trip to the conference and she has a great time there every year. Joining her there will be Tammy and SewDot from the ATW site and I'm sure a lot of others from here too. I hope we get a bunch of photos when they get back but somehow I think they'll be having too much fun to break out the cameras. If you haven't gone yet to one of these conferences you owe it to yourself to go as soon as you can. They are always fun and eduacational. This year's conference will have about a dozen teachers and many hands-on sewing, embroidery and software classes. For those interested in attending in the future, watch the website at... http://www.braeco.com
Grrrrrr! Bad Design! Have you ever started stitching out a design, got really excited about how beautiful it was looking, then at the very end, it stitches a black outline around the body and leaves a gap between the body and the outline? Grrrrrr is right! What causes this and how can you fix the problem? There are three possibilities that come to mind immediately. 1) Bad design 2) Hooping problems 3) Stabilizer problems Bad designs DO happen, but most digitizers test-sew their designs before releasing them to their customers. If you know the digitizer's reputation is good then you may want to move this one to the bottom of the list for now. Stretching the fabric while hooping it can cause problems with alignment of the design elements. Don't pull on the fabric to straighten it out or remove wrinkles once it is hooped. If it has problems, un-hoop it and re-hoop instead. Using the wrong stabilizer can also allow problems to creep into the sew-out. Make sure you've learned enough about stabilizers to use the right one on every project. "Test sew". The word comes from the Greek root word of "test-sew". It means "test sew". There is an unwritten law that says "The likelihood that a design will be bad when you haven't test-sewn is directly proportional to the cost of the garment you are putting it on." There is actually a formula for it... "The likelihood that a design will be bad (in percentages) when you haven't test-sewn is directly proportional to the cost of the garment (in dollars) you are putting it on." To work the formula you start with the cost of the garment... A $10 garment is 10% likely to have a bad sew-out added to it if you don't test-sew first. A $20 garment is 20% likely to have a bad sew-out added to it if you don't test-sew first. A $30 garment is 30% likely to have a bad sew-out added to it if you don't test-sew first. ... and so on. You can see what happens then when you are about to add a design to a $100 garment! Okay - so the formula is baloney - but maybe it will save you from some heartburn if you treat it like it's real. If you're going to add a design to a poplin jacket using a tearaway stabilizer, then you need to test sew that design on a poplin fabric with a tearaway stabilizer. Don't test sew it on felt with iron-on then act all surprised when it sews out differently on the jacket with tearaway. Members: Read more about this at... http://www.artisticthreadworks.com/members/1632.cfm
Backup To CD -- It's Free! No fancy software. No extra programs to buy. Just pop in a CD-R and copy your files to CD. I love making videos and this one should make it very easy to do basic backups using nothing more than things you're likely to have in your sewing room already! Watch this new video showing how to backup your designs onto a CD... http://www.artisticthreadworks.com/public/1631.cfm This video is open to everyone - members and guests alike!
Prize Drawings On April 30th 2007 We are doing two additional prize drawings on April 30th 2007 for ATW. Each week we give away something in the Bobbin-Buzz newsletter (3-month membership this week - see below) as well as giving away designs every week. We also give away memberships every month to three people that post photos in our photo gallery. What we are doing in April is an additional give-away. Here's the details... The "Bobbin-Buzz" drawing: We are giving away a Brother NX400-Q sewing machine. This is a computerized sewing and quilting machine. The list price on the machine is $1149 and we picked one up new at a really nice price so we're giving it away. Here's a picture of the machine... The "Bobbin-Buzz" drawing will be held on May 1st and everyone that is on the Bobbin-Buzz mailing list is automatically in the drawing. If you aren't on the Bobbin-Buzz email list yet, you can enter here @ http://www.artisticthreadworks.com/public/85.cfm The "Artistic ThreadWorks" drawing: We are giving away a a complete set of Robison-Anton threads. This is 452 mini-king spools of thread and the wall-mount racks to hold them all. The list price on this prize is a little over $2,000. The "ArtisticThreadWorks" drawing will also be held on May 1st and everyone that is a member of www.ArtisticThreadWorks.com automatically in the drawing. Here's a picture of the threads and racks... NOTE: The machine in the photo is NOT included! You can be in the drawing automatically by being a member here. Here's the page with info about joining ATW... http://www.artisticthreadworks.com/public/10.cfm You don't have to be a member to be in this drawing, you're just automatically in the drawing if you are a current member on April 30th 2007. To enter without being a member, send us a postcard letting us know you want to be in the drawing and we'll enter you manually. The postcard must be received at our office no later than April 29th 2007 and must include the words "ArtiticThreadWorks Drawing - April 2007" along with your name, address, phone number and email address to be eligible. Notes 1: Don't send multiple postcards. Only one entry per person. Don't send GIANT postcards, the number is drawn by computer - not based on the size of the card. If you are a current member of ArtisticThreadWorks on April 30th 2007, don't send a postcard - you will not be double-entered in the drawing. Notes 2: If you have won a prize from us before, you're still eligible to win in these drawings. If you're in a foreign country, you're still eligible to win UNLESS winning prizes in a free drawing is prohibitted in your country. Okay - there are always nitty-gritty details to these things thanks to the greatest government money can buy supplying us with all kinds of red tape, but this is the simplified version of the rules. For complete details, go here... http://www.artisticthreadworks.com/public/1627.cfm Again - to join ATW now... http://www.artisticthreadworks.com/public/10.cfm Good luck to everyone in the drawings!
New Designs Released This Week At ArtisticThreadWorks... See ALL this week's new sets here! And this months Member Bonus Set... 'Peekers of the Month' Here's a picture of ONE of this weeks new sets... See ALL the new sets here!
Weekly Prize Drawing Winner We are doing a weekly drawing for readers of Bobbin-Buzz. The prize is a 3 month membership to ArtisticThreaWorks. That's something anyone on our list can use! To be in the prize drawings - just be on our Bobbin-Buzz mailing list. If you're not on the list yet, you can sign up here! This week's winner drawn at random is... blaforest@cox.net The winner has 5 days to contact me via email and claim the prize. Send the email to Webmaster@ArtisticThreadWorks.com. Congratulations and good luck to everyone else in next weeks drawing!
Right From the Start I wish I had known, right from the start How my new obsession would grow Beyond the sewing room, and out through the door With not one machine, not two, but four. I wish I had known right from the start, That fabric grows in the dark Maybe I would've chosen more wisely, If I'd taken that to heart. I wish I had known right from the start, That thread would be my dear hubby's dread With thread up his nose and thread out his ears, Here, there and everywhere: thread, his worst fear. I wish I had known right from the start That designs from the internet, are not just a lark As I download, download, download: That's the best part. I wish I had known right from the start The friends I would make, to help in my quest, Not a one of them fake, All of them blest. I wish I had known right from the start, That I'd be hooked clean through the heart As for my machines I know we'll never part! I wish I had known right from the start The joy embroidery would bring. As I stitch and I type If only Id known, I would have started sooner to make my mark. Nancy B (Thank you to Nancy "sewnanc" for the poem you entered in the "I Wish I Had Known..." contest. It was one of the winners. See more below.)
I Wish I Had Known... On Monday morning I posted in the embroidery forum that we were holding a 72-Hour Contest. The winner would receive a 3-month subscription to ATW. Just finish the sentence... "When I started in the machine embroidery hobby, I wish I had known..." There were over 450 responses to the question! I closed the contest on Thursday morning and started reading through them all, looking for the two winners... the best serious answer and the best funny answer. Wow. Just finished reading them all on Friday afternoon and then editing it so it would print out nicely. The winning entries are highlighted in yellow inside the PDF file you can download below. Robin will be updating all their memberships on Monday with a bonus 3 months. It was VERY hard to choose beacuse there were about 450 great answers. I narrowed it down to the ones that really touched me in a funny or personal way then I narrowed that group down again to just the top 31 answers. I was going to go through those and pick out the top 2 but just decided it would be too hard to do that so the ones highlighted in yellow are the 31 prize winners. If your post is highlighted twice, you won once but I found two things in there that struck me and didn't want to miss either one while I was re-reading them. Thanks to everyone that participated. These are great reading and everyone is welcome to download a copy using the link here... http://www.artisticthreadworks.com/public/images/Wish-I-Had-Known.pdf Here are the authors of the winning posts... jbadger opieonekanobiein lsdlong suzsh carlaswabbitat emmey Mona L MSanger nursie Santo nlardner quiltingmommyof4 Jane breinkc Costumelady roselustre bjwilson Betty Louise bentley cabmarshall nan mama_duck shorti lkboden geegwhiz pat71896 jncking sewnanc NiqueB CarolynH and there's one more winner... read the pages to find the last one! Congrats to all the winners and thank you to all played the game!
Bobbin-Buzz Designs Help yourself to this weeks free design set "Duck-Baths". These are for everyone that is subscriber to Bobbin-Buzz, our free weekly newsletter! Download Duck-Baths Here! Have fun!