Proud to be a BERNINA Ambassador

I am proud to be a longtime BERNINA Ambassador. When I joined in 2003 I met people like Libby Lehman and Yvonne Porcella, who befriended and mentored me. Over the years I’ve had 10 different BERNINA machines, and currently I sew on a B 790 and Q 20 – the sitdown model.

2003 was my first year in the BERNINA Fashion Show. Imagine my delight when my entry ended up on the cover of the show book!

In 2006 I was invited to attend the ambassador trip to Switzerland, where we toured the factory, had cocktails at the owner’s villa, traveled to textile and lace museums, and….ate a lot of Swiss Chocolate. (red arrow on the right points to…my head.)

Being in the presence of so many quilting luminaries was such a heady experience.

My mentors in my early years in the fashion industry all had BERNINA machines, but they wouldn’t let me touch them!  Connie Crawford was my patternmaking and draping teacher at FIDM in Los Angeles, and that was the first time I had heard of BERNINA. Later, when I moved to Hong Kong for my 2nd designer job, I was befriended by Oscar de la Renta’s patternmaker and sample room manager…an Austrian woman who had trained in couture samplemaking with Christian Dior. And….she had a BERNINA. (Later we were room-mates in Hong Kong, and we are still friends today.)

So when my 2003 garment was on the cover of the show book, I got a copy and walked into the BERNINA booth at Quilt Market, and asked to talk to the biggest cheese available. I spoke to Martin, the CEO at the time….declared I wanted to be a BERNINA ambassador, and the rest is history!  My 2nd fashion show garment was made on my first BERNINA, and I’ve never looked back.

For the last year and a half I’ve been focusing on my art studio practice. It is almost 2 years since I lost my wonderful mother who was always so supportive of my creative endeavors. I spent a lot of time caretaking elders for 15 years, and when we lost Mom, I knew I had to put that chunk of time right into my art studio. I joined the SAQA JAM program (Juried Art Members) and made a commitment to start making larger art quilts for exhibition. As you will see on my gallery and exhibit pages on this blog, I’ve been busy!

Through it all, BERNINA and SAQA have supported me and my work, and I am so grateful. Now I am finishing a special Chinese-themed textile art piece for the Taiwan Quilt Festival next month. Having just returned from the Houston Quilt Festival, and the premier of the new Soul Stories art quilt exhibit, I am charged up and back in the studio.

In the following post I will share some tips I have compiled after several years working on the Q20 machine. My love of the BERNINA brand is deep and enthusiastic. Once I started sewing on these machines, and they plowed through anything I put under the needle, I was a fan for life! Having had so many mentors and industry supporters over the years, I know this is the time of my life where I focus on giving back in addition to having a productive studio practice.

Please continue to my next post –

“Pro Tips for BERNINA Q 20”