April 2021 Newsletter

40 Coutts Street
Kilbirnie, Wellington 6022
(04) 387 4505
jo@sewingdirect.co.nz 

The year is flying by for those of us lucky enough to be living near-normal lives in this Covid-affected world. It’s 12 months since we were in full lockdown and how sobering is it to realise that many people overseas have endured lockdown conditions for most, if not all, of that time?

A big thankyou to all our customers - long-standing and new - for your support during the last year and for continuing to inspire us with your creativity. We genuinely love hearing about and seeing what you make from your Wellington Sewing Centre purchases.

A big thanks also to those who voted in the recent Regional News “favourite shop” competition. We work hard to ensure fantastic service and to have the right expertise on hand every time you visit so are delighted to have won (with Commonsense Organics) the Eastern Suburbs section. The $100 gift voucher to our shop, awarded to Gaylene Rowland who said she wanted “to get kitted out for winter” from our shop, has already been spent! Check out p27 of the latest Regional News for a photo of Toni, Jo and Annie with our winner’s certificate!
The Regional News Kilbirnie feature showcased our vibrant and diverse business community and I‘m pleased to report that it has just grown bigger! That’s because Rongotai and Lyall Bay businesses voted to join the Kilbirnie Business Improvement District, whose brief is to make the area a better place for businesses and consumers. Jo is chairperson of the business district’s executive committee, which now faces the task of improving business and consumer experiences from Evans Bay to Lyall Bay!

We’re also pleased to welcome the Busy Bee Quilt Shop to Kilbirnie - into our previous premises! Sue, Shanon and Busy Bee (previously in Kingsford Smith Drive, Lyall Bay) are well known in our community of creators and their move to Kilbirnie consolidates this area as Wellington’s creative hub. Busy Bee has also bought Nancy’s Stitch Studio (from Thorndon Quay) so with Wellington Sewing Centre, Stitchbird and Busy Bee/Nancy’s now all within 150 metres of one another, Kilbirnie has everything you need for your creative projects.

Janome Play Date Friday 7 May, 1pm to 3pm

Want to make original special occasion cards using machine embroidery, fabric scraps and cute embellishments?

On Friday 7 May from 1pm to 3pm Janome NZ’s Natalie George will lead a group of customers in card-making using the embroidery features of our Janome machines.
We’ll supply everything but if you have special fabric scraps and embellishment (vintage buttons, sequins, beads etc) that you want to use, bring them along.
$5 enrolment fee.

Enrol in the shop or phone/text Jo on 0274264870

Sewing Machine News

We sell a big range of the latest, top quality, sewing machines and overlockers - from beginner to advanced models. Janome has the most machines and they dominate our selection but we also sell Elnas, Singers, Babylocks, Husqvarnas, Pfaffs and HandiQuilters. There have been a number of price rises lately, as freight costs skyrocket and overseas manufacturing levels slow down because of Covid.

Machines that have been out of stock for a while but are back on our shelves include Singer’s Cosplays and Heavy Duty overlockers. We expect there will continue to be shortages for some time to come, as each shipment sells out and the next one is not yet in the country.

The new Babylock air threading overlocker - the Victory - which replaced the very popular Imagine, is in stock. However, Janome’s air threading AT2000D is not available right now. We hope there will be a shipment soon.


We keep up to 30 display models on our shelves so we can demonstrate them to customers and they can make informed choices among the models they prefer. We also keep in stock all the models available that we can fit in the shop! If you look in Jo’s office (and sometimes our staff kitchen too) you will see up to 40 brand new machines in sealed boxes, ready to go to their new homes.

Online Help

Janome Australia is now running regular step-by-step “how to” videos about the more complex functions of their machines, for example embroidery and free motion quilting. The videos are then available on Youtube.
It’s a good idea to look online for reputable sources of information about your machine’s capabilities. And of course we‘re always here to help - and we offer regular classes on getting to know your computerised machine!

Our Wonderful Classes

Winter is a perfect time to brush up on existing skills or learn new ones and we have a great range of adult classes on our May to July 2021 timetable. How about learning to knit socks or sew lounge pants to luxuriate (or blob out) in at home?

We’ll be adding more classes, from July onwards, later this term so check our website or the handouts instore to see what’s coming up.

You can enrol in a class on our website. With just 6 people per class, don’t leave it too late to enrol.
If the class is full, you won't be able to purchase a place through the website but will be advised to “add to wishlist”. However we won’t know you’ve done that so if want to be put on a waiting list for a class in case someone cancels their enrolment, you should email classes@sewingdirect.co.nz and ask our classes guru Robyn to do that for you.

Remember that our gift vouchers can be used for classes as well as goodies, so a voucher could be a great Mothers’ Day or other occasion gift.

Macine Service and Repair

Since the post-lockdown days of machine repair frenzy, things have quietened down and we are able to get your machines serviced or repaired much more quickly. The price ranges from $120 to $160 depending on the time needed to get your machine back to its best self!
Quite often people bring in their machines saying the tension has gone off or the bobbin thread keeps snarling up yet we can put things right just by changing the needle and thread that is being used! You can ensure far happier sewing by doing these simple things:

• change your needle every 8 hours of sewing (yes really!)
• use the right needle for the fabric - whether stretch, woven, thick, thin, shiny etc (yes really - there are different styles and sizes of needles for all these things)
• don’t use old threads! Use the same good quality new thread on the top and in the bobbin of your machine.

Woolly News

We have a huge stock of yarns and are constantly searching out new ones that our customers will love. We also stock as many knitting patterns - classic and modern - as we can get our hands on, which isn’t as easy as you might think! Popular small projects at the moment include beanies, scarves and fingerless gloves. For those who want a bigger challenge, there are always gorgeous shawls and jumpers to make!

Among our fave winter weight yarns are these:

Indiecita Baby Brush 14 ply Alpaca. (80/20 baby alpaca/acrylic) Luxurious for garments or a throw/ rug. If you buy the 10 balls needed to make a rug just like the incredibly soft one on display in the shop we’ll give you the pattern. And we now have 15 amazing colours to make it in. Elsewhere you’ll pay up to $17 a ball for this yarn but we’ve kept our price at $13.80.

Fiddlesticks Peppin 10 ply superwash merino This new super soft Australian merino in 14 colours is proving very popular with everyone who squeezes it!

Sesia Arboris 80/20 wool/linen in 10 colours arrived just this week and is lovely to work with. With 125 metres to 50 grams, it can be knitted as an 8 ply or a 10 ply. Just do a tension square first!

Knitting tip! Doing a tension square is essential for all knitting where size matters, especially if you’re using a different yarn to the one used in the pattern. Eg even if you are just 3 stitches too narrow or too wide over 10 cm, your knitting will be significantly too small or too big over the width of an adult garment!

We believe it’s way better to spend the first hour or so on a new project knitting up 30 stitches and 30 rows, so you can check your tension over the central 10 cm square and adjust your needle size or pattern size if necessary, rather than spending many hours knitting up $100+ of yarn only to be disappointed with the fit of the garment!

Crucci Beautiful Baby100% merino 8ply The 8 pretty colours of this new wool are especially suitable for baby garments while being subtly different from traditional baby colours. 110 metres for $8.90 makes this our most economical merino yarn.

Rowan Felted Tweed 8 ply (merino, alpaca and viscose) With 175 metres to 50 grams this yarn is lighter than other 8 plys (which have approximately 100 metres to 50 grams).
We believe that Rowan yarns have the best knitting patterns, designed by their suite of well-known designers and published in very reasonably-priced booklets. Ensuring supply of UK made Rowan yarn and patterns is sometimes an issue but right now we have more than a dozen colours of Felted Tweed and will be ordering in more. We also have a good selection of patterns designed specifically for this yarn. Its speckled texture and glorious colours guarantee an elegant garment that would look perfect with pants or skirt made in one of our winter fabrics!

Coming soon a new range of 100% New Zealand merino, many more (we hope) of the hard-to-get Touch Yarns 12 ply mohair hanks, and a limited quantity of Malabrigo Rios 10 ply hanks.

Fabric News

For winter garment sewing we have a selection of quality wool and wool blend fabrics, merino knits, plus plain and patterned linens and linen blends. Jo doesn’t believe that the season should dictate your sewing choices (she knits right though summer!) so our larger collection of viscoses, rayons, cottons, silks and blends of those natural fibres is refreshed all year round.
We’ve enlarged our collection of StyleArc multi-size patterns recently and bought in the latest of the Nelson-based Papercut patterns - in their new format. Each of these patterns covers a range of sizes (eg 4 to 16, 10 to 22, 18 to 30) so we recommend tracing off your size onto our non-fusible interfacing ($3.30 a metre, 130cm wide). You can even sew the interfacing, to check you have your size right and to make adjustments. Then, by using the interfacing as your pattern you keep the multi-size pattern intact to use again, maybe for a friend who can trace off their size!

Buying from Us Online

Don’t forget that a lot of our stock is available to buy online - though not all of it by any means. You can always phone or email us to check if something is available instore if it’s not on our website. With Covid 19 affecting manufacturing overseas, we’ve been unable to obtain certain items and have had difficulty maintaining some stock levels. Unfortunately some overseas factories have closed down due to Covid and others are operating at very much reduced strength. The supply of certain sewing machine parts and accessories has certainly been affected, as some customers know, with waiting lists of several months for some items.

Embroidery

The Stitchsmith is a New Zealand designer whose needlework and embroidery kits celebrate native flora and fauna. The larger everything-included kits, on display behind our counter, feature kereru, pohutukawa, riroriro and more and will make stunning 40 x 40 cm cushions.
The smaller designs, for use with our DMC embroidery threads, feature tui, piwakawaka, kereru, pohutukawa and other local icons. These would make a great gift for Mothers’ Day - just saying!

Drop off point for Crafty Volunteers

Many of our customers are very generous, donating handknitted woollen garments and blankets for newborns and others who need them. Recently our shop became a drop off point for the Crafty Volunteers group who distribute donated items (check them out on Facebook) and we’ve been delighted with the assortment of lovely knitted items that has come in already. If you have time and wool spare, please consider adding to the Crafty Volunteers’ collection. We will be kept updated with the items they need most so ask us for those.

Our Amazing Team

Regular customers may have noticed a few comings and goings among our team members this year Some temporary absences have been due to happy reasons - including Maria’s recent marriage - but Trish has been off work due to ill-health for several weeks now. We hope to have her back with us on Saturdays before too long. Gemma has had some much-deserved annual leave, Robyn has been caring for a family member and Toni has had 2 weddings and a funeral to attend.

Thankfully Annie McGee and Cheryl Crooks have leapt into action to fill the gaps in our rosters and both are now well and truly established in our team.

Annie has been a nurse, sales manager, teacher aide and more, and recently completed the costume design course at Toi Whakaari (NZ Drama School).

Cheryl, a keen craftswoman and repurposer, has held a range of senior management and marketing roles in public and private sector organisations.


Both Annie and Cheryl are enjoying the happy, friendly vibe of the shop and we are delighted to have them on board with their upbeat energy and skills.

Between us all, our team has a fantastic range of creative skills. We are knitters, costume designers, quilters, crocheters, seamstresses, sewing machine gurus, embroiderers, needlefelters, weavers and spinners! And that’s just Gemma! But seriously, we’re all handcraft lovers and doers and are here to help!

That’s it for this quarter. If there’s anything you would like to see more of, less of or if you have ideas about how we can make things even better for you, do let us know!

Meantime do what you love!


Best wishes from the WSC Octet! - Jo, Gemma, Maria, Robyn, Trish, Toni, Annie and Cheryl