A voyage of discovery

More and more time spent lately on the Bernina sewing out embroidery designs. Yesterday was my free tuition day with Sheila at MKC Ltd who sold me the machine. A lot to cram in to a day, but very enjoyable and no broken needles! I had been a bit worried about the fact that this machine "does it all for you", but actually, there is enormous scope to develop your own artistic style. I have to say that simply sewing commercially prepared embroidery designs can be a bit boring, but, I hope to be able to design my own, and there is a lot to learn. Understanding how the designs are contstructed will take some time, but it will be great to be able to digitise my own and create some truly original pieces.

So for now, I am content to practice and learn so that when I am ready to move on, I will be able to do so. Next job is to sew out all the decorative stitches on the machine to make a record of what they acutally look like. This will make it easier to combine them and make the results look as professional as possible.

The new camera is proving to be easy to use as a point and shoot. Will I ever bother to find out how to use the manual settings? Difficult to say, but I think I will use the macro setting as this will take really close up photos and will be very useful for design ideas. I have passed the Olympus onto the DH who is reading the 140 page manual from cover to cover before he starts! Oh to be so disciplined! This is one of my latest showing two of my favourite people!

The weather is still wet and dismal, but we have just booked our Easter holiday cottage, so that has cheered us up a bit. It's Porthleven again. I know it's a bit sad to keep going back to the same place, but we are drawn to it. Could it be the pasty shop!

But for now it's back to the Bernina which needs a drop of oil to keep it sweet! Then I am going to put my new skills to the test and manipulate one of the designs to decorate a little bag to send to my DS with the latest photos!

I could get used to this retirement lark, but I keep thinking that someone from work is going to ring me to say, "where are you?" It will gradually sink in!