Sew Inspirational

Inspiration

We at BERNINA pour a lot of love into the four issues a year of our creative magazine Inspiration, and we’re delighted that Inspiration has proven popular not only in Europe, but also in Australia, New Zealand, and of course many other countries as well.

BERNINA’s sewing magazine, Inspiration, is aimed at anyone who’d like to learn more about the brilliant hobby of sewing, embroidering and overlocking. In each issue you’ll find sewing projects under the headings of Fashion, Accessories and Living, a featured quilt, our “Guest Spot”, and seasonal projects for Christmas, Easter or summer, as appropriate.

In addition to a wealth of sewing, embroidering and overlocking ideas, Inspiration always features valuable tips on sewing techniques, as well as information on using BERNINA accessories. We continually introduce you to new BERNINA machines, and other interesting products for your hobby.

Thirty-six pages plus the Creative Consultant and two pattern sheets deliver plenty of variety to your home three times a year. In addition, there is a special issue once a year on changing themes, “Living” being the most recent. The special usually contains 24 pages and is published without a pattern sheet.

“Inspiration” Available from your local Bernina Dealer throughout Australia and New Zealand R.R $9.90 AU.
A magazine full of sewing and Embroidery projects, for all occasions.

Creative Serging

Behind the Scenes

It is an interesting and often challenging process to write a book, but when co-authoring a whole range of different challenges present. The fact that both I and my coauthor Nancy lived an ocean apart in Australia and the USA respectively offered another hurdle and I can only hope you can imagine some of the challenges we had.

I met Nancy some years ago on one of my first teaching trips to the US, after publication of my first book, “Serging Australia, Overlocker Artistry”. She lived in Chicago, the home of Bernina USA’s head office and we met at a store when she and a colleague came to check out just what this cheeky Australian was all about. Nancy also had a great passion for overlocking (serging) and it was while we were having lunch and Sangria at a tapas restaurant the book idea was conceived and literally drawn on a couple of serviettes. We formalized our ideas and sent our proposal off to the publisher. We had no word for some time and were going to scrap the whole concept when out of the blue we got our proposal accepted; luckily I was in the US shortly after and we went shopping for our supplies.

We bought equal amounts of the same fabrics, selected the same patterns and went back to our respective sewing studios with the goodies. Each chapter was to be in the nature of a challenge (a bit like the Threads challenge), where we both worked to the same broad outlines and ideas to showcase how creative minds could create very different finished projects from the same materials. We also had different body shapes and hair colour so shopping itself was a great challenge as well as a ton of fun.

Garment sewing was fine for both of us: home dec was Nancy’s favourite and my nightmare, while the art quilt was my favourite and Nancy’s nightmare. We also chose conventional quilts and scarves to give as broad a range of challenges as possible. Our other objective was to also showcase the creative opportunity that Coverstitch (available on the Bernina 1300 DC, Bernina 1300 MDC, Bernina 009 DCC) could add to our projects.

We stitched and wrote independently of one another and only met up with our completed projects when I flew over to the US for photography; talk about a leap of faith!! However, Nancy and I are quite different sewers, with Nancy being much more traditional and me being more artsy, though we both pushed ourselves hard to break down some personal barriers. I won’t say that I am a true covert to home dec as neither is Nancy to the artsy areas but we both have a healthy respect for the fact that we pushed harder than either of us expected and we were both delighted with the results. Our objective was to give you, our readers, the widest range of options from our collaboration.

Creative Serging is a great reference book with technical information in abundance as well as a vast range of projects for you to explore. I am sure when I meet with many of you along the track, I can sign your books with same pleasure as I had in writing it. And even though I always say I will never write another book, book four is underway, though this time I am going solo again.

Enjoy the journey and many happy stitches “From the Loopers and beyond”.

Anne van der Kley
Co-Author

“Creative Serging” Available from your local Bernina Dealer through out Australia for $29.99 (Paperback Edition).
Contact www.bernina.co.nz for availability in New Zealand.
A great buy for the best innovative applications and amazing projects on Overlocker’s /Sergers.