Small Businesswoman Named Embroiderer of the Month

The Stitchery Mall is showcasing some of our more creative users and small business owners every month. Our first Stitchery Mall Embroiderer of the Month is Trudi Koch from Avon, Ohio.

Ms. Koch was nominated by Joyce H. Daniel, a Stitchery Mall customer. In her nomination, Joyce told us that Trudi "has to be one of the most creative gals I know. She tries new things all the time and comes up with the cutest items that are useable, saleable, fun, a great inspiration to the rest of us, and she has great ideas for using designs in unique ways."

Trudi started into machine embroidery when she was a manager for JoAnn Fabrics. They had a Viking dealer inside the store and she got her start with a Designer 1 machine. She liked it so much that she went to work for Viking selling their embroidery machines. After a year of doing that she decided that she wanted to work from home and so she bought a Brother 12-needle commercial machine and started her own embroidery business. After filling an order for 135 shirts she decided that it was not the business for her and so now she does machine embroidery work for fun, a small, select clientele, and sells a few items in a craft shop.

Trudi credits her love for children for providing her with the inspiration for her projects. When she sees something that she likes she will take the idea and work it over until she is satisfied with the results. Her "grow charts" using Aunty M's Ballet Bears is an excellent example of this.

Specifically mentioned in Ms. Koch's nomination were her pet treat cans. In speaking with Trudi about her selection as Embroiderer of the Month we asked her about those cans. She said that got the idea for them because she kept a jar of snausages on her counter for her pet dog and hated the way it looked. She took some cloth, added a picture of her dog and put "Bo's Treats" on it instead. As people saw her can of treats, they started asking for them for their own pets. Today it is one of her best-selling items.

Trudi is a tester in many formats for several digitizers. She tells us that she was even Teri Sullivan's (Sew Terific) very first tester. She has also tested for Aunty M, Carol Hoak, Carolyn Faulk, and many others. She also said that while she enjoys testing new designs she does not test as much these days because of the expense involved.

Quality designs are very important to Ms. Koch and sample designs are a great way to test a digitizer's ability. She always tries a test design before she purchases designs from a digitizer. The best piece of advice that she has for new embroiderers, in fact, is that they to join an embroidery list so that the members will be there to help and point them to quality designs to stitch out. Often new machine embroiderers are discouraged by low quality designs that stitch out poorly and think that they are no good at running their machines when the fault lies in the designs they are using.

She then told us what factors she considers when buying designs. She looks for designs with good density and outlining, and that cover well. She considers low stitch counts to be a good thing, and will stay away from digitizers who produce thick, "bulletproof" designs. She also does not like to spend her time changing threads and will avoid designs which would force her to sit at her machine and do so.

Press Contacts
Stitchery Mall
press@stitcherymall.com
(254) 865-7895

Trudi Koch
Please contact us at press@stitcherymall.com for contact information for Ms. Koch.

About Stitchery Mall
The Stitchery Mall provides high quality designs from well-known digitizers at reasonable prices. The Mall offers immediate downloads of sample and purchased designs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Press releases and announcements of past winners are available through our press mailing list at http://www.stitcherymall.com/mailman/listinfo/mallpress.

About the Embroiderer of the Month program
Every month we look for people who are running an embroidery business or who are using designs they have gotten from the Stitchery Mall in an especially creative, innovative, or worthwhile way to feature. Nominations can come from the individual or someone else and are made by sending an email to emnom@stitcherymall.com which includes contact information for the nominee as well as the reasons why the nominator thinks the nominee should be showcased. An image showing some of their work is optional, but appreciated.



This article courtesy of http://www.embroideryinfoonline.com.
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