Welcome our First School District Intern: Emily!

We are so excited to introduce our first intern, Emily!

This picture is from Emily's first day at Turtleworks on January 6, 2022. She comes from the Fremont Union High School District's post secondary program, and she was very excited to be joining our team!

Her journey with Turtleworks started last December, when she came and tried out cutting the backing of embroidered products. She did a great job with the square patterns, and we knew she was a good candidate for an intern. 

On Emily's 1st day on the job, we gave her some garments which had backing that needed to be cut. However, this time the pattern was more complicated, not just a square shape. The cutting needs follow the embroidery pattern and leave 3-4 mm space, and in the beginning she had trouble doing so. As you can see in the video, she almost cut the embroidery patterns several time. Even though we remind her to slow down, she still cut very fast. Her coach said that at times, it is difficult for her to follow instructions. We knew she was trying her best to learn this skills, so we encouraged her to try some different tasks.

During the weekend, Turtlework's owner, Sherry, researched better ways to teach Emily how to cut the backing. She studied preschoolers are taught to cut using scissors and one trick she learned was to draw an outline so they have a line to follow when cutting. On Emily's second time coming to Turtleworks, Sherry prepared more practice material by adding outlines on the embroidery patterns or letting her draw the outline on the backing before she cut. She can visually see the line and be easier to follow it. As you can see from the pictures below, although some are still cut too close to the embroidery patterns, she got a lot better with this training.

Afterwards, Emily brought some material back to school. During her vocational training time, she can practice more in school. Since then, Emily has improved her skills and been a great help at Turtleworks. She felt so happy learning the embroidery process, and we are thankful for her help and glad she had a great time!