Hot Hot Hot

The holidays are here and its time to kick back, enjoy the company of friends and family and make stuff. I had a wonderful time with my sister and family, home from Hong Kong for just one week. It was so good to catch up and chat and chat and chat. My sister has decided to sort through and decide what to keep and what to disperse of all the things from their Australian home that they have had in storage for five years. I was the grateful recipient of her fabric collection, craft books, china and lovely old doilies etc. It was better than Christmas. having shared my good fortune with the other 'Fat Quarters' a lot is happening on the craft front now in all our homes.The weather is hot and the craft is too. Ballarat is known for it's cool climate so days of 38C are a little hard to take especially when you are being environmentally conscious and don't have air conditioning. However it does make for a good reason to bunker down in my work room and get making. Since the beginning of the holidays I have learnt to crochet, made a new bed for my dog and attended an exclusive workshop given by Ric Rac and have made my first bag. Learning to sew among friends is a good idea cause they can yell 'STOP' when your machine starts making funny noises cause you are doing something wrong. Crafting together is such good fun and such an excellent way to learn how to use a sewing machine. It's rather like learning to drive there are many new things to think of all at once. I need all the help I can get. the other day while concentrating so hard to get my sewing straight when making a cushion I didn't realise that I had one of the pieces of fabric the wrong way around and then had to unpick the whole thing. Fortunately crocheting is easy to pull out and redo which I have done quite a bit of.