One of the things I really love about my job is the great people I get to meet! This week I had the pleasure of spending two days in Albia, IA with Christy Luvstuen, her husband Doug and their daughter Jessica. Christy has been stitching on a Janome machine for about three years and after a year of research and a lot of conversations with Gary at Melco she made the leap to the BRAVO. Christy didn't find me on the Internet as a Bravo dealer (guess I need to do some work getting my website closer to the top of Google search), but she did make the right decision on the machine to buy and made the purchase through another dealer in Des Moines.

Christy doesn't just embroider, she also sews... a skill that I am always jealous of. Christy is in the process of making a doll and a quilt and showed me these great little bags she makes - the closure is made with a cut up tape measure. I am going to have to dig out my own sewing machine and give those bags a try, such a fun idea.

After the first day of training the family invited me to join them for dinner at Bogies Steakhouse in Albia. I have got to tell you that I had the best steak ever, and the atmosphere was great! If you are ever in south central Iowa, you will have to stop in and watch your steak being prepared. While there you can check out the deer on the wall. It is the largest whitetail ever shot, and it was shot by Christy and Doug's son.

After checking my email today it was a pleasure to see the following email forwarded to me from Gary at Melco.

"I want to thank you for everything you have done for me and especially thank you for sending Nancy, she is awesome.  My head actually hurts right now because I learned so much in the last two days.  She really knows what she is talking about and is a great teacher.  I felt very comfortable with her and just want you to know how very much I appriciate it."

Thanks for the kind words Christy!

Patch Pals

I didn't get to meet Mackenzie this week because she is off to college these days, however in the basement of her parents' house in eastern Iowa there is a full blown business that was started because she was diagnosed with severe amblyopia when she was three.

To find out more about amblyopia or Mackenzie click here!

You may be wondering what Mackenzie or amblyopia have to do with embroidery... well, I'm going to tell you.   Cathy and Bill came up with an ingenious idea years ago when they were faced with reality of making their daughter wear an eye patch most of the day every day... make it fun!  They began looking for a way to decorate the eye patches and found embroidery to be an ideal solution.  For years the patches were being sent to a local embroidery shop to be embroidered.  This past week I had the pleasure of meeting Bill and Cathy and working with them to bring the embroidery portion of the business in house.   The use of their embroidery machine is going to give them more control of the lead time on the patches. 

If you have been following my posts you will remember the link that I posted about Marks book - "The Spirit of an American Entrepreneur" -  That spirit was alive in Cathy and Bill!