A patchwork of bloggers

NOTES FROM THE CRAFT FAIR

There was quite a gathering of crafters huddled around Aunty Cookie's stall. I pushed through and planted myself in front of Shannon and said "Hi, my name's Eleanor, I'm Mary's friend, Mary from the Blue Mountains. I'm doing a bit of a write-up on the fair for Mary...Can I ask you...how did you come up with the idea of drawing those adorable little creatures?" She responded warmly once she heard Mary's name, instant ice-breaker, phew. Apparently a couple of years ago she had been drawing some cards for her daughter's friends and she looked at the figures and thought "Well...this is a bit boring.....let's put big ears on them." Fabulous!!!!

I overheard Ellie from Red Seed Studio telling an appreciative customer that her husband creates most of the designs himself, "In fact...even now, as he is sitting and drawing with our two children, he has just come up with a new design!!"

A notice pinned up on the "For swap or sale" noticeboard:
"WILL SWAP HUSBAND FOR STAMPING SUPPLIES, HE COOKS AND CLEANS."

Jodie from Ric Rac likes to shrink empty chip packets in the oven and sew them together into handbags. Her sewing machine has had to be serviced 4 times since Christmas; the man who services it is called Milton and she is secretly in love with him.

I met a woman (whose name I have forgotten) who makes the most beautiful works of art using dried, used teabags. I asked her how she first got the idea to do this and she said that she had a house-guest once who kept leaving used teabags all over the house. It drove her completely mad, until one day she stood at the kitchen counter and stared at one and thought..."I wonder what it would look like if I opened the bag and took the tea out and then dried it flat, and then used it as a tiny canvas?" I LOVE THAT so so much!

When Jodie was interviewed she was asked what advice she would give someone who was thinking of starting a blog. Her response:
"Start right now."

Suse makes knitting needles as gifts, she makes them out of a piece of doweling (I think that's right??) and then puts a big gumnut on the end. All the other crafters thought that was perfectly simple, while I thought that was SO CLEVER AND CREATIVE AND COOL!!!!

Michelle turned to me after the belly dancer at the restaurant finished dancing and said "Do you think she realises that we are all looking at her and thinking 'My god would you look at that fantastic beading on her costume, that must have taken so long...and how amazing is that fabric?!!'"