I’ve been making and selling Shimmer Ornaments since early 2007. I started experimenting on my domestic Husqvarna Designer SE with its embroidery attachment.  Lots of ornaments were made on this machine until my husband (shimmer designer) and I, realized it couldn’t keep up with the amount of production I was doing. So in 2008, we purchased a stand alone Janome MB-4 embroidery machine with 4 needles. Needless to say, this was a step up from the Husqvarna. It is a real workhorse! I literally made thousands of shimmers on this one.

In 2013, on our way back from a trip to Chicago, we bought the Brother Entrepreneur Pro PR1000e with 10 needles! It was shipped from Hamilton, Ontario, to our home in St. John’s, Newfoundland, where we lived at that time. Both embroidery machines have been busy over the years!

We have many different designs that are designed in Corel Draw and converted to stitch in a program called Drawings. This very sophisticated program does a fantastic job of converting lines to stitches for any embroidery machine on the market.

What are Shimmers? Well, they are a combination of threads and Angelina fibres. Back in 2000, on a trip to the USA, I came across these fibres in a quilt shop. I had no idea what to do with them but I bought them anyway – as you would! There wasn’t much information on them as they were so new. The package instructions indicated that they could be bonded with heat. Of course, I bought a sample of all the colours available, not realizing that some of them were not bondable. However, after a lot of trial and error, I did figure out how to use them  Thus Shimmers were born!

Angel Shimmer. One of My First Designs

Where did the name come from? Well, I made a free-motion sample on the Husqvarna. I held it up to the sunlight and it shimmered! The rest is history! These ornaments are light weight, flat and mailable. They can be included in a card and given as a gift, tied with a ribbon on a present, hung in a window or on a Christmas tree to catch the light, hung on a car mirror, or mailed anywhere for little cost. The perfect gift for those far away relatives and friends.

I have an order of shimmers going to Molly Made Fibre Art Studio, Bonne Bay very soon. Shimmers have been going there for many, many years.

Several Shimmers, With One Packaged.

Contact me for more information or to have a unique design made.