BERNINA Academy Events!

Description

Have you heard of BERNINA Academy? Ever wonder what goes on at an event? Or have you attended one of our events? I LOVE events! Love to attend them and participate, make new sewing friends, learn new skills or ideas. Love to host and organize events, and watch others learn and have fun. And I LOVE to teach or lead the event. I guess that is why my job with BERNINA is an Event Specialist! Some of you may have attended events that I have hosted at different stores. For the past 5 years I have traveled all over this great country, working with different stores, meeting new people, and hosting BERNINA Events. Along the way I have been able to see a few sights, make a lot of new friends, and meet great people who love to have a good time! For the past 3 years we have been hosting events called BERNINA Academy. BERNINA Academy is my baby. It was my first event concept to develop for BERNINA of America. I knew when I took this job that I wanted to “shake up the sewing, quilting and embroidery eventing world”. Do something completely different that had never been done before in a national sewing event setting. From that idea and concept, BERNINA Academy was born. BERNINA Academy is fun, exciting, relaxing and educational. The Academy theme has worked to go from one level of sewing to the next. Much like a school concept, we started with the basics and have worked up from there. Fear No Fabric was our first BERNINA Academy event. It was hosted during 2017 and part of 2018. Fear No Fabric focused on 20 different types of fabrics and how to successfully sew each of these different fabrics. We covered burlap, fur, leather, spandex and vinyl with a few fabrics in between. Students learned the proper needle to use with each different fabric and the best seam to use for sewing fabrics so that they did not stretch out or pop threads. This event was also popular with the Cosplay community since it incorporated information that pertained to some of the unique fabrics they use for their elaborate costumes. Fear No Fabric was wildly popular and left our students with a reference book chock-full of tips and tricks. Everyone who attended this event went home with stitched samples for their complete book. They now have this reference book available in their sewing rooms to look up information or pass on to the next generation of sewist. Tame that Technique is the next chapter to BERNINA Academy. With this event students learn several different sewing and embroidery techniques. and we even use overlockers to complete many of the techniques. Tame that Technique has 18 different sewing techniques. Students learn how to stitch a blind hem, insert a zipper, make and insert piping—on the sewing machine and the overlocker! Other techniques include top stitching, scalloped hem and decorative stitching with a new reflective specialty thread. Techniques also focus on embroidery and how to place your embroidery design perfectly using our Pinpoint Placement. In this Academy, students also complete samples for their reference book. Having these books of knowledge at your fingertips has proven to be excellent reference materials. Tame that Technique was offered in 2018 and is also currently being offered 2019. BERNINA Academy Creative Quilting’s focus is all things quilting! Students learn to stitch 8 different quilting motifs and are quilting beautiful feathers by the time class is dismissed. Creative Quilting Academy focuses on our wonderful BERNINA quilting machines: the Q20 Sit-down and the B 770 Quilter Edition. Students experience the BERNINA Stitch Regulator, rulerwork quilting and quilt basting techniques while also trying several different quilting motifs. Helpful tips and tricks, design development, and a few other helpful basics of quilting are discussed during this event. BERNINA Academy Creative Quilting events are currently being offered at your Local BERNINA Dealer. BERNINA Academy Overlocker Lab is one of our newer BERNINA Academies which focuses all things overlocker. Students experience our wonderful BERNINA L 450 and L 460 Overlockers while working on 8 different lab experiments! How fun is that? Imagine what kind of lab experiments you can cook up with the overlocker. BERNINA Academy Overlocker Lab is being offered starting in late Summer of 2019. My hope is that you enjoy this style of events. You will learn while also having fun, making new friends, and will go home with a completed project, whether that be a reference book, quilt top of samples and designs, lab experiments, or the next class project. There’s no pressure for perfect grades from our team, just education and fun. BERNINA Academy is the course you want to attend and “graduate” from. Attend all the courses and you might receive a Doctorate in all things BERNINA Academy! Look for your next course at your Local BERNINA Dealer. I hope you see you all at the “Commencement Ceremonies”. Heather~