Janome Education Summit

I was fortunate to recently attend a Janome Education Summit in New Jersey not far from our Janome North America office.  This was for Janome North America Educators; Artisans and bloggers.   I attended together with  Debbie (our Director of Marketing & Education), Jen who hosts/presents our Janome sales events on The Shopping Channel and Tamara who is one of our Janome Canada Artisans and spokesperson for Janome in Canada (Michael, aka janomeman, wrote about Tamara last week on the 18th June: “Look who I ran into” )

From left: Tamara; Jen and Debbie

The purpose was to get time to work on a range of our Janome sewing machines and learn some great techniques and machine features. Janome sure has a lot to offer!  It was a very fun and successful time had by all.

There were a number of wonderfully creative and informative sessions:

Kimberley Einmo who is the new National  spokesperson for Janome America taught us how to do flying geese with her very clever ruler and a jelly roll of her new line of fabric: Solid-ish . Thank you, Kimberley. She told us it was an intermediate – advanced  technique so I breathed out nicely and will try harder on my second block to get my points to match! Her ruler sure makes it easier and saves a lot compared to other techniques for flying geese that waste a lot of fabric. The method I have used previosuly has a pile of discarded little triangles in my waste bin. Too small for much else but when added up, is a sizable chunk of fabric. But I think a note to self is in order: Slow down a bit, Liz, if you want your points to be more accurate!

 

Tamara  led us through a fun journey of discovery on our free Janome APP: AcuSketch and then we stitched the design created on AcuSketch onto one of Tamara’s own designed fabrics using the embroidery unit on our fabulous  Janome MC15000 Quilt Maker. I am SO taken up by AcuSketch as it is simply the most fun to scribble on my iPad and turn this instantly into quilting or needle painting – all sent conveniently and wirelessly to my hoop!  No need to have to free motion and hold my tongue in the right spot in my mouth to get it perfect – AcuSketch and the Janome Mc15000 does it all for me. This is simply the best! Thank you, Tamara, for this fun exercise.

The ladies from Shannons Fabrics had us cut up and make a cuddly baby blanket with one of their Cuddle Kits. What a great bonus to hold, stroke and sew these luscious fabrics! Thank you, Shannons Fabrics for a fun and rewarding project. Lots of fluff for sure but we also got lots of tips about how to reduce that fluff. Our Janome Acufeed Flex walking foot was perfect for success with this project.

Amy Johnson (who I call the “Ruler Quilting Queen”) was also there to teach us about Ruler quilting using the new QR foot on the Janome MC9400. I was so pleased to be able to finally meet Amy in person although we have emailed each other several times before. Amy provided us with great printed blocks (thanks, Amy) on which to experiment with and practice our ruler quilting skills using the block marker and all 6 rulers in the Janome Ruler Work kit.  Here is a link to a recent post from Amy on her site which talks about this same Ed Summit.

Isn’t this a great fabric block to go wild with the rulers and create a unique and beautifully quilted block?

Now I am showing you this block above as we also had Eileen Roche from Designs in Machine Embroidery magazine with us. She gave us each a software program to design and colour our very own quilt blocks and panels – which is what Amy did to get these lovely blocks for us to do our ruler quilting on. What a great opportunity to learn about this easy software and start designing our very own blocks and panels. Thank you, Eileen.In a similar way to other print-your-own fabric companies like Spoonflower, you then email your created design to them and they print it onto a your choice of a wide variety of sub-strates. Turn-around time is only a few weeks. I was pretty impressed with the endless possibilities this opens up for us. I have been looking in vain for suitable fabric for our Janome QMP longarm on which to demo and let people play with longarm quilting at shows and I think I finally found the way to end my search!

Heather Peterson from Girl Charlee Fabrics in California gave us all kits with pattern instructions and fabric to make an on trend pencil skirt with knit fabric. Thank you, Heather! This was all done on the Janome 4 thread serger and Janome CPX 2000 coverhem machine. I think I was done and already wearing my completed skirt in less than 45 minutes! What a quick and fun project and I was so glad I learnt some valuable fitting tips and time saving techniques which I fully intend to use when I make more of these skirts. I have the fabric already picked out at home!

I gave a quick demo at our PJ Pizza party on how to use the Janome Quilt Binder set……. my “schtik” caused some hilarity! Those of you who have heard me do this demo will know to what I am referring.

Was I possibly considering whether to mention a certain incident at airport security with my Quilt Binder and the confusion over whether I was a Doctor or not?!

And last, but not least, Miriam Coffey showed us a bunch of her fabulous samples – modern quilted bags and runners etc made with fabric she embroidered (open, quilting-like designs, not heavy stitch fill). She then cut that embroidered fabric up and used the pieces as embellished fabric for piecing into unique items with a Modern quilting flair. See our recent janomelife post where Miriam explains on video how she does this. And here is some of her “eye candy” – thanks for graciously allowing me to photograph your samples, Miriam.

 

This was one of those fancy storage tote bags with little plastic pockets inside. The brand name of this bag eludes me for now. Miriam covered it with her embellished fabric pieces sewed together.

There is a LOT of creativity and sewing fun to be had by visiting your local authorized Janome dealer store and by attending special Janome events they may offer from time to time. We even have several planned during the summer so check it out at your local Janome dealer’s store.

Also please do visit us in the classrooms and on the booth at sewing and quilt shows all over North America……we are always there  – ready and willing to answer your queries and show you the newest Janome machines and sewing tools we have to offer.