Thursday 31 January 2008

The Next Stage
Well, FCA? Got it yet? Soon.....
Here I was waiting for my, or should I say, THE book and DVD to arrive and guess what happened?? The postal service in the UK had scheduled postal strikes! I had read with interest the reviews by other people in the entry group about the book and kept hearing the messages..."Read the book, watch the DVD". What was a girl to do in these circumstances?

A book and DVD were somewhere between Nancy's Notions store in the USA and the south coast of the UK, and who knows when they would arrive?.....So, what the girl, aka Ann, did was to look at the website www.bagsandpillows.com and read what other people were getting up to on the group. I had a go at punching fancy fabrics I already had in my stash, organzas and dupions to see what happened. This was fun - shimmery fabric, glitter and lots of pink. WOW! I was in heaven. Then to add some extra glitz and ....sorry, got sidetracked there by glittery things!
The next challenge whilst waiting for the book/DVD to arrive was to try and source some of the supplies needed and this was, and is, still a challenge due to different names for things and the sadly diminishing shops available.

Wednesday 30 January 2008

Watch this space for the next chapter in the story of how a FCA was born.
FCA?? You will soon find out...

The adventure-the beginning

My adventures in punching land or the story of how a FCA was born.

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin....
One day, during the summer of 2007, I was surfing the web in search of something new, interesting and different to view, when I happened upon a picture of a needle felting machine or should I say a needle punching machine? It was called an embellisher! So, what did this machine do? I read with interest and thought, wow, this sounds intriguing and without further ado, and I add, without seeing one in the flesh, I decided to buy it!
"Was that wise?" I hear you ask. Well, maybe not at the time but it felt right to do and so I eagerly awaited the arrival of the embellisher.
The embellisher arrived and I thought " What now?" So, I had a go and punched some felt onto some denim in the shape of a basket of flowers. Very pretty, but not state of the art and awe inspiring. However, it was early days and I was happy to think this machine had possibilities. Little did I know what was to come!

Not long after this chapter in the adventure I was again surfing when I came across a link for punching fabrics with designer techniques and a link to an online teaching group. I was intriqued. What was this and could I do it?.......

The link was to the entry group for Christopher Nejman's designer techniques using the embellisher in conjunction with fancy fabrics. I decided to join and see what this was all about as it sounded inspiring. This came at a very good point in my life when I was in need of inspiration to get going again in the sewing/craft world after a difficult few months in my life, so it seemed it was "meant to be". I read the messages and decided that, yes I could try this, so sent off for my book and DVD from the USA as they were not yet available in the UK.