Hey stitchers, welcome back! I hope everyone had an opportunity to relax a little after the wild and crazy holiday week. It’s always so hard to get myself in the mood for work after such a nice long break, especially after traveling across the country and then throwing a big party pretty much as soon as I got home. Needless to say I won’t mind things settling down a bit for a while. An intermission in the chaos is definitely needed. Now that the Fourth of July is officially in the past and the WI State Shop Hop is complete, I’m happy to say that things are pretty much back to normal here at PG – including our store hours. In case you weren’t aware, our hours had changed for the duration of the Shop Hop, but have now returned to our normal summer hours as shown below.

Our trip to TX was educational, fun, informative, and even a bit surprising after finding out we were nominated for the 2023 Bernina Rookie of the Year award! Thank you to everyone who showed Luke, Jake, and I such awesome support as we eagerly awaited the winner to be announced last week. Unfortunately, we were not the overall winner, but we are officially now on Bernina‘s Top Ten dealership list for our district. To add to the accolades, we also were inducted into the Bernina “Century Club,” an exclusive group for top performing Bernina dealers. In addition, our store was recognized as being one of the top Bernina dealers in the nation for exceptional growth in 2022. Not bad!!! We’re obviously super excited about it all and we’re looking forward to being even better going forward.

All the awards and recognition aside, one of the main purposes of Bernina U is to provide a place for Bernina vendors from all over the world to gather together to take classes, learn about new product releases, updates, gadgets and any new technology coming out. As you can imagine, it’s really a cool event! This year, one of the main topics of discussion was the new Bernina 790 PRO and I can’t say I’m surprised. This awesome machine is what Bernina is calling the next level of sewing, quilting, and embroidery, and they’re not kidding! It was super fun to be able to play around and explore it as they explained all the bells and whistles on such a magnificent machine. I am honestly impressed! Everything about it is obviously designed for a fast yet quiet, more precise, and joyful sewing experience.

Featuring Bernina‘s Pinpoint Laser Technology, their state of the art Automatic Needle Threader, and 4-Point Placement, this machine definitely means business. Plus – hang on to your bonnets – this thing is WiFi enabled! It has an app you can use to transfer designs directly from your BERNINA Embroidery Software 9 directly to the machine, or vice versa. Plus, the embroidery process can be monitored on your smartphone remotely in real-time. How cool is that!? These are ideas I’ve only been able to dream about! Want to know more? Take a look at the short video from Bernina all about the 790 PRO below!

It takes a lot to impress me and the 790 PRO definitely has my attention. They certainly are coming out with some neat technology these days and Bernina really seems to be embracing it, which is why they’re one of the best! That’s one of the reasons why I enjoy Bernina U as much as I do. Every day I get to see something new and exciting which only inspires my creativity more! It’s awesome and I can’t say enough about it. I wish you all could have been there! I suppose you’ll just have to take my word for it…

If you’re interested in knowing more a bout the 790 PRO and you weren’t able to watch LIVE with Lisa last week, I highly recommend catching the replay by clicking the STITCH button at the end of the post. Luke and I spend a considerable amount of time discussing Bernina U and the new 790 PRO so if you missed it, it’s definitely worth a watch. And as always, if you have any questions about the 790 PRO or any Bernina product for that matter, please don’t hesitate to give Luke a call in our Bernina department at 920.778.8035. You can also email him at bernina@primitivegatherings.us for more information and he’ll be happy to help!

Speaking of TX, it sure was it a hot couple of days while we were down there, but good ol’ July in WI is not about to be shown up. The sun is out today and temps are currently in the 90’s as we speak, but thankfully Mother Nature has graced us with low humidity for once, so it’s not as unbearable as it could be. I do love the heat and sun so I’m never the first to complain about hot weather, and at the rate this summer is flying by I certainly don’t intend on wishing the season away. Pretty crazy to think that by the end of the week, half the month will be gone and we’ll speeding toward August like a freight train! Which hey… That actually reminds me to remind YOU that if you haven’t loaded up on American Gatherings II pre-cuts and quilt kits, you need to get on it! They are still on SALE through this Wednesday, July 12th, 2023. Here are the details!

And as long as we’re on the topic of reminders, don’t forget that tomorrow we will be back on our “regular” CommentSold schedule, meaning we go LIVE at 10:00 a.m. CST this Tuesday, July 11th, 2023. The theme for tomorrow’s show will be wool appliqué, which if you know me at all you know is one of my all-time favorite things to work with! If you’ve been doing wool appliqué for years or are just starting to learn, join me! I’ll share my best tips, tricks, and favorite tools of the trade. Never know – you might learn something… Either way, I hope to see you all there! As usual you can tune in with the Primitive Gatherings CommentSold app or on our Primitive Gatherings Facebook Page in the “LIVE” area. Have a great night everyone and I will see you on the internet tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. CST! Bye for now! ~Lisa