The Bobbin Buzz & Stitchin' Bits

Holly is flying today from Fort Walton Beach Florida to Knoxville Tennessee for a meeting tomorrow. At least that was the plan when we bought the tickets! It may be flying today AND tomorrow instead of today since she's now in Atlanta and the connecting flight to Knoxville has been cancelled.

I know that airlines fly based on weather. Being delayed is not what's agravating about it. It's the lack of care that they take of their customer's needs that drives one up a wall. Rather than announcing that the flight was cancelled over their loudspeakers, they just waited until their customers looked at the ARRIVALS/DEPARTURES video display and noticed the cancellation on their own. When Holly asked them why they didn't make an announcement, the employee said "It was shift change time and that makes it so difficult to process all the people at one time". WELL DUH!

So there's a slim chance that she will be able to catch a ride on one of the next 3 flights leaving tonite. If not - then it will be a 2 day flight. I'll keep that in mind the next time I'm tempted to take an airline flight to save time. :-)

The meeting in Knoxville is to work with the RNK Distributing team on what Holly and Nita have learned in stitching out about 1,000 Fuwari designs on home machines. That's more Fuwari work than anyone in America has done and more home-machine Fuwari than anyone in the world since it was until now only possible on commercial machines. Their expertise will go a long ways in helping the teams teach others about Fuwari as they travel across the USA and other countries.

Over breakfast we were discussing the similarities between Fuwari and Free Standing Lace. Not that the finished product looks similar, but that FSL was an entirely new concept when it was introduced a few years ago. And because the technique was new to the world - it took a little bit of information about exactly how it is done before people could make it work. Fuwari is the same in that respect. It can be done by almost any home machine but there are a few things that you need to have demonstrated first in order to get it to work.

When Holly and Nita were at the VDTA (Las Vegas) at the end of February, people from all the major sewing machine makers stopped by the booth to see and touch the Fuwari. Of course they're wondering how it's done and if their machines will do it. The answer to the second question is YES... almost every home machine will do Fuwari. The answer to the first question though -- "how's it done" -- will take a bit more to cover and we'll get into that shortly.

-- Larry