Isn't this the sweetest little cropped sweater? "Where," you might ask, "did she find it?" The answer: Rght in her closet, hiding in back with others Jennifer doesn't wear. It's just a regular cardigan sweater, plus embroidery, with the lower band cut off and serged back on a few inches higher. She used the differential feed to keep the knits from stretching, so you can't even tell the sweater's been altered. Jennifer stabilized the sweater behind the embroidery with a bit of Armoweft interfacing to keep the stitching from pulling and puckering. I don't know about where you are, but here in the mountains it's getting awfully chilly, so I'm getting out my serger and embroidery module and heading for that box of old sweaters in the garage...

One of my favorite BERNINA "toys" is the Needle Punch Accessory Set; perhaps because using it is so much like coloring with crayons, or maybe because it provides nearly instant creative gratification. Just imagine: pull a boring old sweater from the back of your closet (or the $2 rack at the local thrift store), add a handful of yarn/fiber/fabric scraps, play for 30 minutes, and end up with a one-of-a-kind designer sweater!

I had this red sweater and leftover yarn in my office for several weeks before I decided what to do with them. Every afternoon I'd place the yarn in different positions until one day - after seeing someone wearing a coat with large felt dots - I started moving it into tight swirls. The yarn tail reminded me of a stem, and so these roses were born.

Working with the Needle Punch is really just as simple as placing the yarn on the fabric and running it under the needles. After planning my design I "punch" it here and there to baste it in place, then go over the whole thing slowly to make sure I don't miss any spots. Then I turn it over, punch from the other side, and do one final run-through from the right side. By this point the yarn fibers are so entangled that they've become part of the fabric - no worries about whether the "stitching" will hold! (For a short video demonstration of needle punching by Nina McVeigh, visit www.thequiltshow.com and click on BERNINA Videos.)

For more Needle Punch projects visit www.berninausa.com, click on Search at the end of the red menu bar, and enter PUNCH in the search box.