The Wonderful World of Vogue Fabrics

Members of the guild put together 500 pillowcases for donation to children at Camp COCO and the Ronald McDonald House. Jason Johnson/The State Journal-Register By ANN GORMAN THE STATE JOURNAL-REGISTER Posted Jun 12, 2009 @ 12:00 AM As sewing machines whir around her, 86-year-old Helen Landreth of Springfield carefully feeds brightly colored fabric under the presser foot of her “old Singer Featherweight,” creating a multi-patterned pillowcase. “It’s my traveling one. It has its own case and works so nicely. I was offered $10 for it on a trade-in one time, but I said no,” Landreth said of the black, portable machine she’s used since the late 1930s or early 1940s. She also owns two other sewing machines and a serger. Landreth — the oldest member of the Springfield Lincoln Land chapter of the American Sewing Guild, recently joined other members at the University of Illinois Extension Building at the Illinois State Fairgrounds to sew hundreds of cheery pillowcases for children who are ill o...

As I mentioned previously, the ASG Convention was in town. I was not able to attend any of the events unfortunately. I did especially want to attend the DIY Style cocktail party. They are a new "vodcast" company geared towards the twenty-some crowd. I like what they are doing. You can down load their free video instructional podcasts on Itunes or directly from their site. I was introduced to them from the Vice President of McCall's during a buying trip in Las Vegas. They were having a make it take it party with an open bar from what I understand. It should have been a blast. I'll talk with Cindy, the boss, and see if she can give me the heads up from the nights events. We donated/sponsered the fabric for a couple of the projects. But, today was our day to entertain. Two buses with over a hundred ASG hard core sewers came to visit. First they went to our Roosevelt Road store in Chicago, and then to our Evanston Flagship Store, and finally ending up at our Warehouse. Ea...

We have been busy preparing the stores and our warehouse for the arrival of our welcomed guests. Cleaning and arranging specials for the Monday bus tour. We are tour #5-Chicago fabric stores and couldn't be prouder to represent Chicago fabric stores. We have prepared coupons and specials for our guests and love seeing large groups come to the store. The last time we entertained a group this large was the Viking Sewing Machine Convention. 5 full buses pulled up after we had the city of Evanston block off special parking on the street for the buses. It was incredible, so many sewers and fabraholics having such a great time. It reminded me of the controlled chaos of a flea market that my Grandfather took us to as kids. I'll try and take photos and post them to show the excitement.