THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH

It's the seventh anniversary for Sew What's New LLC. This picture of Marge and Val is from last year's event. They're both wearing hats because they wanted to be entered into the raffle for a gift certificate to Sew What's New. This year we will have another hat raffle. Our celebration is April 18th from noon to four with food and goodies of course!

The Things You Learn from Customers!

Laurie M, a breast cancer survivor, is always on the lookout for quilting for a cause. Her latest discovery is Quilts for Kids. (www.quiltsforkids.org). This group provides precut kits for crib quilts for free. All that is asked is that you donate the batting , time to assemble the quilt and the postage to send the quilt back to their central office. They use donated new fabric or purchase the new fabric because these quilts are washed frequently in hospital commercial washers. The website is quite interesting with stories and videos. I heartily suggest you check it out.

Synchronism

It's a great feeling when disparate things coincide and become a great idea and project.

The disparate things:
First was being offered three bags of wedding dresses that were donated to a project called 'Brides for the Cure'. The project was...scrapped (!got it?).
Second was when Sharon (our Sunday staff) left Sew What's New for a job with the Islip Breast Cancer Coalition.
Third was selecting a project for SuperBowl Sunday.

On SuperBowl Sunday, the gowns came out of the white (!?) garbage bags and a hardy bunch of sewers, started ripping, tearing and dismanteling the lace embellishments. Others cut fabric to 11" squares. Then we set up a few sewing machines and began appliqueing some embellishments to the squares. IT WAS FUN!!!

But how does this involve the Islip Breast Cancer Coalition you ask. There is a major fund-raising event in the fall for this group. We plan to have our quilt or quilts ready for a raffle.

This is not a small project. We can use your help on the first and third Sundays of the month at Sew What's New. We start at noon and finish at 4 PM.

As quilters we do not often get to play with the glitzy fun stuff. Come and enjoy!

There's a First Time for Everything

This is my first post to my first blog from my first store.
Whew!
There are a lot of 'firsts' going on these days. There are good and bad firsts but the best firsts are watching the joy on a customer's face when they can do something they hadn't done before. When we teach a new owner all the tricks of their sewing machine we include how to put a button on. There are giggles! And for those that purchase a machine with the selective thread cutter it is absolute heaven. Just think about how happy and amazed a new machine owner is when their Viking sewing machine presser foot automatically lifts to a pivot position when they stop sewing. It certainly can speed up sewing if you don't have to stop and reach for the presser foot lifter.