Newsletter from The Eye Of A Needle – March 2023

Newsletters

March 20, 2023

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Hello Lovely Ladies
I can’t believe we are half way through March already! When we opened the Hastings shop in February I knew it would take a few weeks to gauge what and how we would structure the rest of the year. The cyclone has certainly changed a lot of my original plans, but the path is now getting much clearer as we head towards Easter and Term 2 when I will introduce more classes.

In this email I will outline classes going forward for the rest of this year. These are always subject to change, but the basic structure will stay the same.

I am enjoying meeting so many new people, but I also miss my core of lovely Taupo ladies. Many of you had talked about making a trip to Hawkes Bay in February/March to check out our new shop, and we all know that hasn’t happened (yet)! It’s great that the Napier/Taupo Road has opened again today (YAY!) so travelling this way will be a bit easier now. Isn’t it amazing what we take for granted until we don’t have it!

On a rather selfish note, I must admit I was very thankful to be on this side of Napier after the cyclone when my new grandson arrived on 19th February. He’s a dear wee chap and it is so lovely to be closer to my family on this side of the island. I don’t know how I would have coped in Taupo with not being able to get across to meet Hector and to have regular cuddles and Grannie time.

OUR SEWING BEE CONTINUES

Our Sewing Bee to make quilts for flood victim families is going really well, and we have a good pile of quilt tops near completion. We will hold on to these quilts until the families who have been brought to our attention are a bit more settled in their new homes – this could still be months away for some.

In the mean time we will continue to keep the Sewing Bee room available on a Friday between 10am and 3pm each week.
If you would like to come and make quilts for flood victims using our sale fabric you are most welcome. We have a lovely environment here, and plenty of room to sew and socialize. We have gathered some lovely tried and true quilt patterns and I’ve had several offers to quilt the quilt tops once complete, so it has been a real team effort.
Thank you also for the donations of money and novelty fabric that has gone towards this project. Every little bit helps. We have some really special families in mind who we would like to ‘adopt’ so it has been helpful to get some specifics on colours and favourite things, especially for the children. Some of these kids have been totally traumatised by the flooding, so we hope having their own snuggly quilt will bring some comfort to them as we head in to the winter months.

By ANNIE ‘PROJECT BAG’ CLASS

I still have some places available for the PROJECT BAG CLASS being held over the next 2 Saturdays – 25th April, OR 1st April from 9:30am – 3pm. If you haven’t ever made anything ‘By Annie’, this is a really good place to start. You will learn some basic techniques that will be useful for future By Annie projects.
You should be able to complete this project bag in one day.

The handy zippered bags have sturdy quilted bases and vinyl windows for visibility of contents. A handle at the top may be used for carrying or hanging. The medium, large, and jumbo bags also have colorful borders at the bottom. These borders may be pieced or may feature a single fabric.

I have done some costings on this bag based on the Large size – I believe you can complete this at a total cost of $80 which includes your pattern and class fee. I can almost guarantee you will want to make more than one Project Bag once you have mastered the techniques. To make a large Project Bag in this class you will need:
3 x Fat Quarters
A 13″ square of Soft & Stable batting
1 x 14″ dress zip
Strapping for the handle, clear vinyl for the see through window, matching thread
Pattern
Class fee $25
We prefer that class requirements are bought from The Eye Of a Needle please. If you wish to enrol for this class please contact me before Wednesday 22nd March.

NB: Our NEXT By Annie class will be making the Changing Station Clutch & Changing Pad – 29th April. More details to follow soon

CRAZY COLOUR MYSTERY QUILT

We held our first Crazy Colour Mystery Quilt classes last week. There has been a diverse range of crazy colour chosen for these quilt tops, so I’m looking forward to seeing how they all come together in the next class. There is still some space around the table, either on a Tuesday morning or Friday morning on the first week of each month if you would like to be a late starter for this project. The second class will be on Friday 31st March or Tuesday 4th April.

Classes are inter-changeable, so if you are unable to make your regular Tuesday class one month, you may be able to swap to the Friday class (subject to space being available). There will be a maximum of 6 people per class.
Each class will cost $10 per month – you can either pay each time you attend or pay the full amount of $120 up front + the $50 deposit making the full CLASS FEE $170 + your fabric requirements. We prefer all fabrics to be purchased from The Eye Of A Needle please.
I have been approached by several customers keen to do this class on a Saturday as they work full time during the week. If you would prefer to attend a class on a Saturday once a month, please let me know as we can still slot this additional class in to our Term 2 calendar.

Please contact me if you would like to sign up. Below is a photo of my first block, using a range of Grunge fabrics and a lot of embroidery stitches available on my B770Plus sewing machine.

2023 BLOCK OF THE MONTH
The FLOWER FARM by BUNNY HILL DESIGNS

‘There’s nothing like a field of flowers to bring joy to our hearts.
With 12 blocks featuring life on a flower farm, this quilt will bring you flowers and joy every day.
Get ready for some applique fun. You’ve arrived at The Flower Farm!’

Our 2023 BOM has been launched this week. I still have 2 kits remaining, so it’s not too late to sign up if you have been thinking about it. The kits will be couriered out in the next few days. Last week I had ladies cutting out all their pieces of fabric in preparation, so we have decided to launch a ‘LEARN TO MACHINE APPLIQUE’ class every Thursday morning, starting this Thursday 23rd March from 10am- 12.30pm.
If you would like to learn how to applique on your sewing machine, you can come along this Thursday morning. if you would prefer to use a different colourway to The Flower Farm colours, we can adapt our pattern to suit you, using fabrics/colours of your own choice.

The cost of The Flower Farm BOM will be $45 month + postage if you’re out of town.
if you would like to attend the MACHINE APPLIQUE class, the weekly fee will be $5 – alternatively $60 for the term (until the end of June) + your fabric (which we prefer you to buy from us here at The Eye Of A Needle please).

BERNINA – THE YEAR OF EMBROIDERY

Bernina HQ have recently announced that this year will be the YEAR OF EMBROIDERY, so there will be lots of projects both on the Bernina website, future Bernina newsletters, blogs and extra projects. You don’t need to have an Embroidery Unit to go with your machine (although some of the projects will require it); some projects will just be using your sewing machine – our Crazy Colour Mystery Quit is one of the embroidery features that we will be focusing on here – getting to know what your machine can do.
Below are a couple of marketing specials for the month of March.

TUESDAY – EMBROIDERY DAY

I realise not everyone is into machine embroidery though, and with this in mind I have made the decision to make TUESDAY our EMBROIDERY DAY, covering both MACHINE and HAND EMBROIDERY.
I am delighted to have our local embroidery expert Merynn Read willing to share her extraordinary stitching talents with us once a month on a Tuesday morning from 10am -12:30pm. Merynn will cover all aspects of hand embroidery in her teaching, from stitching simple embroidery stitches, hand quilting, making tassels and everything in between. We will be putting together some kits that you can purchase to use in Merynn’s class. I expect those of you who know Merynn, will want to sign up for this class immediately!
I only have room for 8 ladies in our classroom, so it will be a matter of getting in first with your payment to secure your spot. This class will cost $40 for the morning, and will be held once a month.
The first class will start on Tuesday 11th April.
Below is a sample of a simple cross stitch sampler that Merynn has made just to whet your appetite.

BOHO EMBROIDERY TECHNIQUES

For those of you who are more into the Boho typed embroidery I will be ordering some Dropcloth samplers designed by Rebecca Ringquist shortly, and we will look at creating a Boho embroidery class on another Tuesday each month. Expressions of interest are being taken for this class with more details coming to hand once the samplers arrive. The class will run from 10am – 12:30 and will be completely separate from Merynn’s embroidery class, although it will include basic embroidery stitching and making your own Boho sampler.

OTHER WEEKLY CLASSES

Now that Tuesdays are allocated to EMBROIDERY, the rest of the week will now have several gaps available for other DROP IN classes on Wednesday and Thursday afternoon. There will be no formal teaching in these classes, but if you like the idea of coming along and stitching with other sewists, (either hand or machine), you are most welcome to join us. I have 3 time slots available:
Wednesday morning 10am – 12:30pm
Wednesday afternoon 1:30pm – 4pm
Thursday morning 10am – 12:30pm – APPLIQUE CLASS as mentioned above
Thursday afternoon 1:30pm – 4pm

These classes will all start after EASTER beginning Wednesday 12th APRIL. Registrations will be confirmed with a class fee payment of $50 which will cover 10 weeks in Term 2. Your place in the class will roll over at the end of each term, so you will have first priority to renew your spot for the following term. 6 places are available in each class.

I know there has been a lot to digest in this newsletter, but now that we have some direction, we can look beyond Easter and know that we have set some firm foundations in place to move forward.
I’m looking forward to full classes and some great creative stitching ahead!

Warm Regards
Kay

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