I love my LQS. I’m lucky to have several near me. At least 4. My favorite, the one I refer to when I saw MY LQS is Quilt Emporium in Woodland Hills. It’s not the one closest to me now but that’s because I moved. When I lived in the west side of the San Fernando Valley, Quilt Emporium was the closest one to me. I took my first quilt class there (with the previous owner) and I’ve watched them change hands, expand their fabric selection, etc. etc. They are wonderful, welcoming people.

In May, they sent an email with upcoming classes and one of them was for “Stitch Club”. Stitch Club is a hand embroidery class and the first sessions were in June and on a weekday. I emailed them and explained that me (and several of my quilt buddies) would love to take the class. But, at least 2 of us still work and would not be able to do weekday classes. Not to mention that we were fully, overwhelmingly booked in June. So Lisa, the proprietor, worked with our calendars to find a Saturday in July that worked. That was today. We had so much fun.

The club is not like how most classes are with a project that we learn and work on in class. We each emailed the instructor our ideas of what we wanted to do and she went from there. Today was mostly an introduction of her talking about thread, needles, hoops, etc. And there were new to embroidery people and more experienced people who knew what to do and just love being with other hand embroidery people. I fall somewhere in between. I’m not new but I am not an expert.

I brought an ornament project that I bought last December during the shops holiday event and my goal is to work on hand embroidery WIPs and once they are done, work on the kits I have.

And one day, I want to work on something from Sue Spargo and Laura Wasilowski.

I’m excited and I had a great time at today’s class.

How do you bring your stuff to class? I don’t want to forget anything so I usually have all the stuff for a thing in a bag and when I want to work or bring that project, I just grab that bag. Because I do not embroider as often as I want to outside of my house, I just took the project bag, my hand quilting bag, 2 plastic bins which carry my hand applique supplies. I just didn’t know what I needed exactly and didn’t want to be without. Well, as always, I did forget something – a small embroidery scissors. Luckily my applique bins had a whole bunch of scissors to use.

So, here’s my list as it stands now of what I need for The Stitch Club –

• the project
• thread, floss, etc.
• #24 chenille needles
• magnetic pin cup – to hold my needles while I’m working as well as a cup to catch all the ORTs. I found a great definition of what an ORT is here.
• embroidery scissors
• finger cot
• thimble

Happy Crafting!

~Melanie