The Cozy Quilt Barn welcomed a special guest Friday, September 18 as nationally known embroidery designer and digitizing expert Janine Babich traveled from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to share her skills during a special workshop.
Babich has been working with machine embroidery and digitizing since 1995, creating her own designs and programming them so embroidery machines can reproduce the intricate artwork in thread.
Cozy Quilt Barn owner Christi Hawk said she has been familiar with Babich’s work for years and has personally used many of her designs.
“Her stitch-outs are impeccable,” Hawk said. “It’s just beautiful thread work. She’s so talented.”
Babich said her embroidery career actually started almost by accident. Her husband bought her an embroidery machine, and initially, she wasn’t particularly interested in using it. The machine sat for about six months before she finally gave it a try.
Then, as Hawk put it, “the bug bit her.”
Babich began creating projects for classes and writing patterns before becoming more proficient at digitizing her own embroidery designs. What began as a creative outlet eventually developed into a full-fledged business.
The workshop marked Babich’s first visit to Oklahoma, giving local embroidery enthusiasts an opportunity to learn directly from someone whose designs they may already recognize and use.
Hawk said bringing Babich to the Cozy Quilt Barn was a natural fit because machine embroidery has become an important part of what the shop offers.
The shop is also stepping into some new territory of its own. Hawk recently became the first person in the United States to sell the Fayu FY777 embroidery machine. The machine can accommodate embroidery hoops up to approximately 6-by-10 inches.
And customers don’t have to worry about sending their machines somewhere else if something goes wrong. Hawk is also a certified machine technician.
When asked whether she had trained her husband to handle the repairs, Hawk quickly cleared that up.
“I do the fixing,” she said.
Between a nationally recognized embroidery expert visiting from Florida and some brand-new embroidery technology making its U.S. debut, it was a pretty big week for machine embroidery at the Cozy Quilt Barn.
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