Final destination, the Imprint Sportswear Show in Toronto. I started my travels in Toronto before Christmas to visit family and headed east until I hit Montreal. Went North to Mont Blanc for more family visits and back to Montreal for the first day back at work for the Artistic office there. Caught up with the staff and then headed west along the 401 to my Mothers. In my one day of breather before the show I will be going over the two seminars I will be presenting. For the first one I am joining Fran from Gunold to give an all day seminar on embroidery. Fran developed years ago the Embroidery Wheel. It's a great way to present the elements that make up embroidery in a way that makes sense. The first part which I cover is about the parts of digitizing, density, underlay, stitch angels, compensation and stitch lengths. That usually takes us the morning and in the afternoon we cover backings, toppings, adhesives, machines, needles, tension and thread. In the middle of the wheel is the fabric.
The second seminar is CSI LSU. That is Crime Sewing Investigation, Lettering Special Unit. Lots of fun for me and I hope educational for the group attending. In that one I focus on quality lettering using predominately keyboard letters in the Pulse software. Presentations are done without branding so the information I present is done as embroidery education and not software promotion. I find many people with limited experience with lettering are unaware of some of the basics. Good lettering is considered the backbone of embroidery. We use to say you can tell the quality of a digitizer by the quality of their lettering. Keyboard lettering has certainly made it easier to produce nice letters but it is a tool and a good understanding of how to use that tool certainly helps. When I was with my co-workers they expressed concern that I was giving away information that was better left a secret. They were concerned that by teaching people the things that we had learned over years of experience we would be hurting our own business of digitizing. Obviously that is not how I feel about it. I think the lack of education has hurt the industry as a whole with many people not realizing what quality digitizing and embroidery is. I think by teaching people they will learn to see and appreciate the difference and frankly realize that sometimes you get what you pay for.
Well all for now. Mum and I are cooking with Julia tonight, Julia Child that is. If you happen to be in Toronto for the show, drop by and say Hi. I'll be the redhead in the Pulse booth.
Beverley Field
The Embroidery Dinosaur