Monday 11 May 2015

a crafty evening

Last Friday, my friend Jo took me to a craft event, organised by some of her friends from the East Neuk of Fife (we used to live in St Monans for a while too, hence the connection). It was a lovely evening, based on the idea of trying out various crafts "kids style" - you know the feeling, when you take your children to an event like this, and you stand there and drool while they`re colouring in, etc., wishing that you could join them because you love colouring, can even do it within the lines, but you`re not going to embarrass yourself (and your children!) by elbowing your way in at the kiddie table...? Well, Friday night was for us, frustrated big kids.
I had so much fun! Apart from meeting `old faces from St Monans` and having a good chinwag with them - and also with some lovely ladies I only just met but we had an instant connection, thanks to cross stitch -, I tried all kinds of crafts, old and new... not to mention the scrumptious selection of soups and cakes at two tables, where you could also grab a card and copy the recipes displayed. At the cakes table (first stop, needless to say), I managed to get my hands on the recipe of a most delicious Dundee cake - yay, my Mum will be so pleased, we`re both big fans since last summer, when we got a heavenly cake from the House of Bruar, near Pitlochry, the likes of which I haven`t managed to find anywhere ever since... until last Friday night, thanks to Lesley.
To my great regret, in the end I didn`t have time to colour in a single one of the beautiful mandala designs provided, nor did I have the chance to visit the knitting or card making tables, there were so many things to try and only a couple of hours - maybe next time! ;)
However, I did manage to give ceramic painting a go. There were these teapot `blanks` provided and glass painting pens in various colours - I drew a sunflower (what else?) and even got a gift bag to transport it in (which later I can also decorate, yay!). I think I`ll `cook` my artwork first, though, before I put the first soggy teabag on it, I just haven`t used the oven yet since Friday... but maybe, one of these days, I`ll bake a Dundee cake...? ;)
I know it looks like a gerbera, but believe me, it`s a sunflower :)
I took along some stitchy magazines as well, plus some of my stitched pieces that have been returned to me, and people were very interested in how and why I got into model stitching, and they also loved seeing the `real life` models of some of the magazine photos. It was a pleasure to see - the way I imagine it used to be - women sitting around a table, chatting, while their hands busy with the needle; some haven`t done any cross stitch for over a decade and were now happy to be reacquainted with the hobby... and of course, the real joy of seeing someone trying it for the first time.
Oh, and let`s not forget my personal Aha! moment for the night: after watching dozens of  YouTube videos and getting more and more frustrated because I simply cannot see the holes in crochet (I don`t always know what/where the chain is, so I stab my hook willy-nilly and end up with some shapeless thing, instead of e.g. the oval I had in mind). So anyway, thanks to the lovely Sue, I have FINALLY mastered the granny square!! Woo hoo! Last night I started a blanket with this sock yarn I`d bought ages ago from Lidl, when I wanted to try out knitting socks (conveniently forgetting that I don`t like the feel of knitted stuff against my feet, I barely put up with cotton socks), so anyway, I have 100g pale blue and 100g variegated, we`ll see how far I can go with these. At the moment, my blanket is about 10 cm square but now that I know the basics, the sky`s the limit! Happy crafting, peeps!


8 comments:

  1. How wonderful - meeting people, teaching them cross stitch and learning new things at the same time.. Congratulations on your Granny Square. it looks perfect! Happy stitching (and crocheting?)!

    ReplyDelete
  2. It was great, Katya, although I was mostly learning (and yapping, hehe), I left the teaching to others who do this thing properly, lol! ;)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Well, look, even crochet can work so beautifully. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, Violka - I`m just so happy I can do this now, it`s been so long since I wanted to learn it! :)

      Delete
  4. I'm amazed that people let you have a break from cross stitching long enough to try out the other crafts!! Congrats on the ceramic painting and look forward to seeing how big your crochet blanket gets!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Elle, I hope it won`t take me years to turn it into a decent sized blanket, I`ll try to do a little bit every evening... well, that`s the plan, anyway. Hehe, I almost wrote, `yes, I`m on holiday just now` - I`m so absorbed in my own stuff, I almost forgot I have a deadline in a week... ooops! ;)

      Delete
  5. Lovely to see you too. I have forwarded on the blogpost to Audrey to give her some encouragement to put on another event.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, yes Karen, please try to persuade her, it`d be so great! I`m already looking forward to it! :D

      Delete