Last of the WIntery Days

Well, this is the last week of Winter and today is certainly cold, windy and somewhat rainy, much to my delight. I am not yet ready to pack away the jackets, scarves and gloves and think about warmer weather, particularly after last summer's scorching temperatures. The people in Greece certainly have my sympathy, according to the news reports it sounds as if they are having a terrible time with the fires. Mind you at the other end of this country, there are 100 fires burning in Queensland due to the wild , windy weather, quite bizarre considering it's still winter.

On the crafting front things have been bubbling along nicely, I am finishing off some lovely stripey red white and blue bunting to hang around my stall at the craft market held once a month. I have decided to use a gazebo (once I learn how to erect it!) which is blue and the bunting should really jazz it up. I also found a lovely supper cloth (not a full scale table cloth) at one of my favourite Op shops. It cost me $1.00 and is a lovely rosy floral on a bright blue and white background, Everynow and then I drag it out of the kitchen drawer just to have look at it and enjoy those lovely colours.

Tafe is going well although my visual diary is more an invisible diary, I am not one for doing my homework as the sewing machine is always beckoning me!! Over the past few months I have gotten to know the ladies in my class reasonably well and they are a very talented bunch. It's always inspiring and alot of laughs are had in class, just the same as when I was at school!

My next project is to learn how to upload photos on the computer myself and not have to ask Mr GP or No 1 son. Hopefully, this will be a painless and quick procedure, so please come back and visit me soon and hopefully there will be something interesting to look at next time.

Friday Again !!

Friday comes around soooo quickly but it's great because it's back to Tafe to have some fun
playing, creating and learning.

Some days I go "yay" I've learnt something useful and have something to show for all that time spent and some days I go" well I learnt something, but not soooo much to show " Getting to know the other ladies a bit better and feeling more comfortable around them. I certainly appreciate their creative talents and they are happy to share what they know.

I have to give a short talk next week on a technique I use in my crafting, so that will be interesting. Today we learnt about wet felting and there are lots of people out there who do it, but as yet I had not dipped my toe into the soapy water, but it certainly was fun. Bought home some wool to have a go at my leisure.

The Autumn colour is absolutely glorious this year despite the drought and our maples are putting on a glorious display. In years gone by they have usually been blown off in a storm after only a couple of weeks, but this year they started changing in February and still haven't peaked. Absolutely stunning, I have gone out to pick up a basketful which I will press and then arrange onto a cardboard shape, usually an oval and that will hang on the chimney above the heater for the duration of the winter or until I have the heart to take it down and dispose of it.

The 'girls' have slowed down with the egg production as the weather grows cooler and the last of the summer vegies are being used, namely the zucchini.

Looking for ward to a weekend with a bit of crafting a bit of housework and a bit of relaxing.
Hope your weekend is enjoyable, take care and don't forget to slow down and smell the roses, or should that be admire the Autumn leaves at this time of the year.

Regards

Claire

Is anybody out there?

If there's anybody out there and you may have just stumbled upon this by accident, any chance of leaving a comment, just to say "hi"!!

Well today was my second Friday at my Tafe course. Once again watching talented ladies work their "magic" with fabric, thread and dye made me want to disappear into oblivion, BUT I perservered and by early afternoon I had something happening with my little fabric sampler.
I had sandwiched together three pieces of fabric and then free hand machine embroidered a pattern taken from a drawing of some bark. Exciting stuff , stay tuned! then I cut through the two top layers of fabric to reveal the underneath and in so doing had 3 or 4 different colours coming through.

Not earth shattering stuff, but I could see where I was going and my sampler was saved from the rubbish bin and my dignity also.

Of course everyone is very encouraging, but when I got home and showed No1 son, his comment was a very enthusiastic " that's cool, i really like that mum" and that's when the shoulders straightened up, the chest was thrust out and I could really feel good about it.

Surprisingly, I trust his opinion more than most other people and if he thinks it's cool , then that's a big thumbs up in my book. Obviously, we are quite alike and share the same tastes in some things, but being a muso he's creative in his own way and is not mainstream in the way he sees some things, so it's interesting to hear his views on what I do.

We've just had a big thunder storm which dumped about 20 mls of rain in a short space of time. Fantastic to see the rain as it will top up our tanks and dam and give everything a good drink.
It was quite heavy and was blowing in under the door and at the window sills, but nothing compared to the poor folk on the Mid NSW coast.

Floods at one end of the country and bushfires at the other end, guess where they should be putting the pipeline!!

Well, school hols are on the way that means 2 weeks away from Tafe so I will have to do some homework, that will include a lino print and some other samplers, so I better get busy and get drawing, sewing and general crafting.

Hope to have some photos on my next post if we can find a simpler way of doing that.

Bye for now.