I looked at their calendar of classes and found a class called Finish It Up...sounded perfect so I called up and asked the owner if I could sign up. The class was actually a finish it up for students who had taken a class with Georgia Mate. But, she said there would be no problem with me piecing away in a corner of the classroom. What I learned upon arrival with my Featherweight, was this class was a finish it up for various machine embroidery classes. It was not lost on me that as I sat across from Carmen (my table mate) that we were decades apart in machinery.

As we sewed the day away, I thought a lot about the different aspects of quilting and how there is something for everyone. Some, like myself, might like embroidery by hand...others prefer embroidery by machine, and yet we are all quilters and stitchers who accept each other and agree that together we will keep the quilting industry healthy. Machine embroidery may not be my cup of tea, but what I do know is that everyone in the class was having just as good a time as I do when I am hand stitching. And, like back in the day when hand quilters looked at machine quilters with disdain, time brought acceptance and so will it be with embroidery machines. As with the world at large, quilters can also look at each other with acceptance and understanding of our differences.



The instructor was Georgia Mate who is the BERNINA expert in the area. She has been teaching owners of a BERNINA the ins and outs of their machine for 28 years! She actually bought a BERNINA store before she even owned a BERNINA. LOL. Now that she no longer owns a shop, she travels to three different shops in Arizona in support of BERNINA sewers. She has also designed many patterns to be used with embroidery machines. And, she herself owns 15 BERNINA machines!!! I think next time we are in the area we need to do a sewing room tour!!! What do you think?!