Breyer Fixes the Error FAST

 Second Post of the Day

UPDATE: Two hours after I sent my contact the notice that one of the patterns was missing from my virtual seminar, it has been fixed! Thank you, Kat!

Everyone Has to Start Somewhere

My mother was quite the seamstress and made all our clothes when we were young.

How about those pom poms?? Leslie and I thought we were terribly fancy.

Both of my grandmothers sewed, with Grandma Martin being a real whiz at clothing and especially costuming.

My aunt and uncle ready to perform for a Red Feather Service Association fund raiser in 1950.

Grandma Honeywell did gorgeous embroidery, crochet, and other fine handwork. 

So, you might think that I had the sewing gene, too, right?

Well... maybe. It wasn't very evident at first. But everyone has to start somewhere.

I began when I was about 8 years old, making blankets for my Breyer 5 Gaiter who I'd named Sham 

 

and a cheap, nondescript plastic Quarter Horse named Apache Joe.

I took scraps from my mother's sewing basket, cut out rectangles, embroidered their names on them, and added yellow wire closures. I still have them and smile when I realize I'd inadvertently done those blankets in Breyer's company colors!

When I was 15, my best friend Shelly was already a very good sewist. 

Shelly (right) and me in high school, twinsing. We were unrelated, but shared the same last name and loved to dress alike.

We both did 4-H, but she was in Clothing Design and Construction and got to dress elegantly and model her creations onstage at the fairgrounds during Fair Week. Meanwhile, I was in Horse and Pony, wearing dusty jeans and boots, and shoveling manure in the livestock barns!

I started playing around with fabrics and my mother's old Singer sewing machine and, with advice from Shelly when I got stuck, began sewing my own clothing. I never had a sewing lesson, not from either of my grandmothers or my mother, but I learned the basics by trial, error, and practice and discovered a life long love sewing.

Shelly is a master quilter now.

She hand stitched every piece of this quilt. Isn't it gorgeous?

Because I helped her a bit with the horses on that quilt, she made me my own quilt block and sent it to me as a surprise. It hangs in my tent for Jolis Chevaux.

As a young mom, I sewed all my maternity clothes and the kids' baby clothes, continuing to sew for them on into high school for Prom and then weddings. 

So, when Breyer asked me what I wanted to teach for BreyerFest this year, my mind went back to my own beginnings. The blankets for Sham and Apache Joe. Some fairly spectacular fails when I made a dress or two for me. And so on.

I felt it was important that any beginning sewist who watched whatever I presented would not feel overwhelmed and could complete a successful project. That they might feel encouraged to continue on their sewing journey. That what I taught included lots of sewing hacks, tips, and general how-tos that would be helpful to them.

I rewatched my 2026 seminar yesterday for the first time since I submitted it in April. I think that there is something for everyone but especially for those who, whatever age they are, are learning how to sew.

I hope it encourages them to keep at it and that down the road, some of them will be part of the hobby sewing community and knocking our socks off with their creativity in pouches, aprons, pads, blankets, and more.

I'm staying 'tooned for that!

Unsealing My Lips

Just before I went to bed last night, I did one quick last check of my social media. And there it was - finally! The my-lips-are-sealed project that I had worked on for several weeks in March and April!

Early last August I was contacted by Breyer and asked if I'd like to participate again for BreyerFest 2026 and if I did, to submit some ideas as to what I'd like to teach. 

I really wanted to provide something beginner sewists could do. We all have a beginning point, but sometimes we compare ourselves to the more accomplished and experienced artisans and quit before we begin. 

So I pitched that idea to Breyer with my reasoning that I felt it was important to have something beginners as well as more experienced sewists could do, something that would be useful, that was fun to make, and wasn't too hard that they would be disappointed in the results. 

Breyer agreed, and so...

I clicked on the links and noticed that one of the pattern sheets had not been uploaded, so I will contact Breyer and make sure that that gets posted, too.

Now that the virtual workshops have been announced, I'll share more about mine,  how Lisa and Jessie both helped me in its production, and more.

Stay 'tooned!

At Last, I Can Share

Yesterday Breyer announced a few of the virtual workshops that will be offered this July at BreyerFest.

One of those was mine.

Last week I'd gotten an email from Breyer saying that people had been asking about the virtual seminars and so they were going to announce some of them earlier than planned. I was asked if I could send some info about mine for that BreyerFest blog post.

Normally we don't send those blurbs until later in the spring, but I was actually glad that Breyer was going to be sharing some of them early. It's good to know that folks wanted to know and that the demand for the virtual seminars is there.

A show drape that I made for The FAMulous Collectibility Show in 2019.

It's nice that I can now talk about my seminar publicly. I was asked last September to do it and there have been times when I would've liked to share about it.

So, the cat's out of the bag (The pony's out of the stall? The model's off the shelf? LOL) and now ya'll know.