Training in Spokane on January 14 and January 15 was a blast. What a great group of students. We tackled a lesson on personalized labels first and then explored the techniques in the tricolor viola lesson afterwards. Students had great questions and super enthusiasm. They are what makes teaching a joy for me.

After the fun we had last weekend, it looks like we'll be making this a quarterly event. I'll be putting together more lessons for them, and they'll be gearing up for another boot camp like day of training!

If you have a group of Floriani users in your area and you're interested in having me come out to train, let me know. You don't know what's possible if you aren't willing to ask.

Monday, January 10 was the first Floriani Series 2 class to be held at the Issaquah Sew & Vac in about six months. We were doing the lace insertion towel for the first time. Everything was going smoothly until we went to add the Q from one of the Text Design alphabets to the towel. Of the eight of us there, about half of us didn't have the alphabets in the Text Design catalog anymore and the other half did.

Here's the thing, however. When I prepped the lesson about 2 weeks before class, I did have all the files in the Text Design catalog. When I went to insert the Q in class, my Text Design alphabets were gone. Now, I know that I didn't delete them, but just the same they weren't there. Fortunately I was able to copy the library of files from someone in class who still had them to those of our computers where they were missing, and we could finish the class.

As soon as I get some time, I'll go up and post this issue in the Floriani Support Forum. In the meantime, since I know that neither I nor anyone else in class deleted the files from our computers, I would suggest that you backup the files in the following folder to a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM:  C:\Program Files (x86)\G7Solutions\Click2Stitch\Library. This way if yours should go walkabout at some point, you can just copy them back to where they belong.

I've created two lessons to teach in Spokane this weekend. One, the tricolor viola, is strictly design and can be embroidered onto anything (within reason) with the stabilizer one would normally use when embroidering on that fabric.

The second, personalized labels, is a little more complicated. I had ordered 2 inch satin ribbon from JKM Ribbon & Trim, but they are pretty slow in shipping so I picked up some 2 1/4 inch ribbon from Joann's as a backup. Unfortunately, neither Joann nor Michaels had 2 inch ribbon.

As a result I'm stitching out my sample with a larger ribbon size than I wanted. I'll need to put together a copy of my class with instructor notes on them. That way I can tell students what needs to change if they want to use a different ribbon size.

Fewer than two days till I fly to Spokane. I'm looking forward to a new crew of faces!

I've updated the front page of the Literary Ends Press website with a list of when and where I'm teaching classes in Floriani Embroidery Suite Pro in January, 2011. Hope to see you there!