Janice Lowe from Australia had so much fun making one of our cutwork-applique vest, that her imagination took off. I happen to consider that the ultimate in compliments.

Her creative endeavors became a three-piece outfit (pants, shirt, and vest) that she entered in the Nabiac show.

She won! Not just one award, but two: Champion and Supreme Champion. I feel like a proud mom over here. Way to go Jan – we’re cheering you on from this side of the pond.

Below are the pictures Jan sent. Thank you again Jan for sharing with us your wonderful creation and congratulations on an incredible outfit.

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She was very interested in our Pleat N Go, and had a bunch of questions as to whether or not it would work for her, with her drapery and home decor custom sewing. Well to make a very long story short, here are her words and a few pictures.

“You had asked me to send pictures of my finished project using the pleater board. I made 440″ of pleated edging for the valances in this room. It was the most wonderful detail I have ever used! I hope you like it – I enjoyed your product so much and plan to offer this custom detail to many customers!”

A view of the large, triple window with the new draperies.

The top of the drapes and topper – again you can see the very top is pleated.

A great close-up shot of the pleats at the very top and the corded edge.

Terrific results and Cathy is happy! That was a lot of pleating and she discovered an easy way to do it. You can sew for me anytime Cathy

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Fannie lives in California and is a few years older then I am. We started out laughing about our rhyming names and remembering songs: Fannie, Fannie bo Bannie… (don’t forget that little trick with Nick!) and nick-names like one of mine: Annie Bananie.

What? You wanted us to just dive into sewing stuff?

We have a mutual problem with losing things; you put them down and they mysteriously walk off. She’s still doing some custom sewing while I stopped years ago. The issues haven’t changed though: people wear the wrong foundation garments to fittings; tell you the wrong initial sizings; pick styles that are really not flattering and of course don’t want to pay you when the garment is ready.

I was ready to nominate Fannie for sainthood for her patience alone.

So we finally started talking about the pleater board. She had tried to do pleats without the board and was real frustrated – so the hunt began! After lots of phone calls one turned up – a fair drive from her home and costing $40. That wasn’t going to cut it.

Fannie called a good friend here in Dallas needing a sympathetic shoulder, and the lovely lady told her about our pleater board kit. Six Degrees of Separation anyone?

We talked pleater boards. The how to’s, putting it together, using it, the step-by-step demo we have on the site, the different ways you can use the pleats. We discussed the regular board versus the fan board and the original idea to create it.

I had a blast! When you find you’re laughing together every 5th sentence, it’s just got to be good.

Fannie got the regular board (I wouldn’t sell her the fan board until she was sure she liked the standard one) and promised to call me after it arrived. She did – we talked – and she was heading off to put it together and create pleats.

About four days after that, Fannie called again. That was one happy woman on the phone. She was amazed at how quickly the pleats were created and made me promise to tell Storm (my good friend and the creator of the boards) that she did good!

To understand why she had been so frantic about making the pleats Fannie gave me the pattern name and number to see for myself. Oh boy. I’d have been borderline hysterical myself.

Fannie promised to call again; I hope it’s soon as I could use more of that kind of shared laughter.

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