KennyKreations is a family business, set-up in 2005, after Lyn and Graeme retired from their teaching positions in Queensland Secondary schools.
With no intention of setting up a business, Lyn wanted to embroider a quilt for their bed. She had a book called Candlewick Projects written by Di Van Niekirk.
“I soon realised that I would not live long enough to stitch all of those candlewick knots by hand”… but I knew that I could create the designs digitally and stitch them on my Pfaff Embroidery machine.
I used a well-known program, Embird, and digitized 16 blocks. I got to Version 7 before I was happy that the designs stitched correctly, without errors. That quilt was Antique Rose – still one of my favourites.
Friends who saw the quilt wanted to buy the designs. Clearly, I did not own the copyright to the designs. I contacted Di Van Niekirk, through her publisher, and she graciously gave me permission to sell the digital embroidery designs.
We set up a website https://kennykreations.com with a single set of designs. We also had a very active Yahoo group. I knew I had to create more machine embroidery designs.
We ran a wonderful workshop with a group of ladies at the Bunya Mountains; we were also invited to run a workshop on Multi-Hooping at a Nancy Zieman Love of Sewing Workshop at the Orange County Fairgrounds, California in 2008.
KennyKreations simply took on a life of its own. It has been a wonderful journey. I am so grateful for all the experiences we have had and all the friendships we have shared, worldwide.
In 2006-7 one of the Television channels did a special on KennyKreations. The photo is of Lyn and Christine with Antique Rose in the background and Flowers from the Heart in front.
Over the years we made lots of visits to the United States where we had booths at the Houston Quilt Show and Festival. We visited many stores there and in Australia.
Lyn is our digitizer, sewer, artist, writer.
She does most of the digitizing, now using Wilcom software.
She test-sews everything before it goes up on the site.
She writes the instructions.
She loves to read, garden, listen to music and play golf.
She is an occasional cook.
Graeme is our go-to guy.
He sorts out practical issues that need fixing.
Looks after all the mechanical stuff.
He runs our Trunk Shows. He just loved meeting up with so many of our loyal customers in his trip to the States, in 2013.
He has a great sense of humour and is an awesome cook!
Christine is our artist and designer extraordinaire.
She is a very talented woman – successful at anything she puts her mind to. She is writing a novel at the moment.
She is devoted to her husband, Neil and to her Tibetan Mastiff dogs – Temujin and Miwa.
She has a wicked sense of humour.
She currently lives about an hour and a half away from us.
Lyn and Christine play online together every week, on PS5. It’s a lovely way to stay in touch!
We were initially Cowboys in the wild, Wild West (Red Dead Redemption II) but are now Pirates of the Caribbean (Skull and Bones)
This is our faithful Gammill that we purchased on our first visit to the Houston Quilt Show in 2005.
Christine had a demo on one at the Gammill booth and said to her mother: “If we are going to be in this business, we need a Gammill!”
I said I thought we needed to discuss it with Dad (home in Australia).
Her response was: ” Don’t you know, Mum, it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission!”
It arrived in Australia several months after we got home – the exact machine that she used in Houston.
In June 2023, Graeme and I retired to Kingaroy in the South Burnett area of Queensland.
Shortly afterwards, I bought a second-hand SWF embroidery machine, from Adrian and Sue Stevens at Astech Solutions. Very happy with the machine and the support from Adrian and Sue has been superb.
At the moment I am working on a series of cyanotype prints on watercolor paper, and then embroidering the sashiko designs that I have digitized, on my lovely SWF.
