Interview with Sharon of embroidery d' golf

Interview with Sharon

I was an art course junkie in the days when summer school was a fun thing to do. I always took drawing classes but in summer school I could make jewelry and throw ceramic pots, what fun! In high school I applied for and was chosen to attend an advanced Art Program held at a local Junior College that introduced us to art appreciation, some wonderful extra trips and one on one's with people like Joan Baez. I've sewn since I was about 10, starting with the usual Barbie doll clothes and advancing to sewing all my own clothes for years. I sewed commercially for a Prom and Wedding Gown company that was located in Redding until it moved out of state in 1997. At that time I was eligible to have retraining and I chose "computers everything" including web design, which it turned out was a very good thing.

From 1980 thru the 1990's I designed and created my own line of contemporary wicker and rattan miniature furniture with the help of a very dear friend who was a retired Interior Decorator. My work was written up in trade magazines and sold all over the United States. It's still an interest I have and all my tools and materials are stored for the day I can build another miniature house for myself. Shortly after marrying Dale we built and showed a completely solar 1" scale dollhouse. A wonderful experience although we had design differences. This house took 1st prize at our local County Fair.

My introduction to embroidery was quite by accident as I was shopping for a commercial sewing machine in 1994 to manufacture some straps for the golf shop my husband manages. While looking at a local dealer's I was lucky to see a PE100 stitching and it changed the course of my interest, easily! Dale's golf shop is small and can't afford to tie up a lot of space or money for garments and certainly couldn't afford the minimums that the big wholesalers wanted for embroidered goods. Having the PE100 and PE Scan allowed me to do logo'ed shirts and hats for the shop. It also allowed me to begin to pick up work from the other local courses in the way of tournament garments. Along the way came a lot of logo work for local companies. The Redding Chamber of Commerce selected me to provide the embroidered tee prizes for their yearly golf tournament after I submitted my design of their logo. In 2001 I started some work for a Las Vegas embroidery house that provided designs to hang in Caesar's Palace when they did one of their many remodels.

As I have been drawn more to digitizing and less to the actual stitching of designs I have pretty much given up doing the large jobs from the past. I had the honor of working with a couple of screen printers and have passed the stitching on to local embroidery shops. I still enjoy the occasional order from the shop and friends and I love thinking up projects for family but I'd really rather be digitizing than stitching any day.

I've been thinking lately that I'd like to get back into sports embroidery designs and I have a bunch of ideas that I put aside a few years ago so I'm thinking once winter is here that perhaps that's the direction I'd like to head in. I've had a great time with the country style graphic of Sheryl's Originals and later Snickerdoodle Dreams but country graphics have become increasingly hard to find so it's time for something new.