Wednesday, March 22, 2017

New Janome Embroidery Designs, Part 2


It's like Christmas when I get to see projects stitched using my latest Janome designs!



What are some good uses of my new embroidery designs for Janome? Well, check out these two tea towel designs by Wendy Jo Miller. She applied my tea design onto a tea towel using her Memorycraft 500e.  The final design measures about 4" x5" and is well suited for a heavier fabric like this.


Wendy also stitched my coffee design onto a matching tea towel.  She said the coffee used a lot of thread to complete, creating a very dense area on the final piece. That's why it's helpful for me to see how my designs translate and perhaps improve function in new designs.


I really love how Wendy added the word "HOME" to my pine cone design. She picked a complimentary font and made it just the right size and color to compliment my art. This is also stitched onto a heavier weight tea towel, but can't you imagine making a pillow out of this design for your home or cabin? The final dimensions are 5.5" x 5". There is flexibility in resizing the design for other applications.


Look how cool the poppies look stitched onto jeans! Thank you, Wendy, for using your imagination and sewing skills to create these fun sample projects, I can't wait to see more.

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Thursday, March 9, 2017

New Janome Embroidery Designs, Part 1

It is so exciting to see my line art embroidered onto fabric! This Janome technology is truly amazing and is masterfully sewn by my friends Sandy and Brandi at Valley West Sewing Center in Bloomington. They surprised me by stitching my latest collection on their Janome Memory Craft 1500 sewing machine and invited me down to take a look.
Oak leaf and Acorn design. 

Forget Me Not design with metallic thread edging on the flowers

 This Bittersweet can be repeated to create a border design.


The Dragonflies can also be repeated for a border design.
The Calla Lily would be even better on white fabric.

The Ginkgo Twist design 

Groundcherries


Lotus has a lot of possibilities.

Poppy trio. I'll soon be showing you a wonderful sample of it embroidered onto jeans.

I love the Arts and Crafts style Rose Heart.

Sunflower
It helps me, as a designer, to see how it all translates visually and helps me to provide feedback to Janome on how the templates were for sewing. These designs are all available as apps for sewists to purchase online.

Monday, February 27, 2017

New Retail Rep Partner

My section in the Anne McGilvray & Company Minneapolis Mart Showroom

For the past five years, I've been fortunate to work with Square One Reps at the Minneapolis Mart. They helped me build my wholesale card and art print line from 40 cards to over 200 items now available in my latest catalog. Local owner, Jan Borene and her team of reps, guided me and helped put my work into more than 50 retail shops in Minnesota and Wisconsin.  I enjoyed going out to The Minneapolis Mart on Show Days to meet with potential customers where Jan treated me like family.

At the beginning of the year, Square One was sold to another wholesale rep company called Anne McGilvray & Company based in Dallas, Texas. They welcomed me to their team, helped me transfer my items to their website, and gave me a new booth in their brand new Minneapolis showroom. It was still in progress when I went out for the first show last month. As you can see in the photo, they creatively hung my cards clothes line fashion and prominently displayed my prints, posters and magnets. My name plaque wasn't yet in place. Fortunately, my Square One reps, Judy, Amy, Liz and Sharon, made the transition, too. They are simply the best people to work with. 

Anne McGilvray was in town to meet us during the show and welcome us to her team. She runs a huge retail repping company with  showrooms in Dallas, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle with many top national wholesale lines, so I feel fortunate to be represented by her team. My work will only be shown in the Minneapolis Showroom but she has additional reps in Iowa and North and South Dakota who will represent my lines, so I expect my customer list to grow. Here's a little bit more about Anne McGilvray and Company
A cropped view of my web page.

I put out a new catalog in January for my wholesale customers. It contains new cards, art prints, posters and magnets. I continue to focus on my favorite landmarks and Midwest themes in my work.  If you want to carry my work in your shop, you can either contact me or Anne McGilvray & Co. at info@annemcgilvray.com.  The next show is March 10-14th at The Minneapolis Mart located at 10301 Bren Road W. #378, Minnetonka, Minnnesota 55343.  
My latest catalog.

I will miss Jan and Alan and the wonderful time we spent together at Square One. My best to them on their future plans. I plan to grow my wholesale business under the guidance of Anne McGilvray & Company and continue to work with wonderful retail and museum shops in the area.