Getting Crafty

Spent a lovely day at the Caulfield Racecourse on Sunday after church.
No, was not attending the races but was at the Stitches & Crafts Show. This is one of the 2 which are held every year, and having missed last year's 2 shows ( usually in March & September ), this was the last chance for me to attend before I leave. It had started on Wed 6 March and there I was finally, on the last day of the show. Entrance fee cost A$14 - not cheap, but it was well worth the money.

There were over 150 retailers at the show and I was amazed at the variety of crafts on display. There were also stalls by the various guilds, like the Needlework Tapestry Guild of Victoria, The Embroidery Guild, Decoupage Guild Australia, Patchwork & Quilters Guild of Victoria and even the Bead Society of Victoria !
The Aussies are truly are a "crafty" lot of people...

Asde from these, there were also iced cakes on display - this was a competition for "sugar art". These were wonderfully done - there was even one with psychedelic colours reminiscent of the Saturday Night Fever design, as well as more traditional flowers & ribbons, which would look good as a wedding cake.

Unfortunately, theer were some signs prohibiting taking of photos, so I could not take shots of some of the wonderful pieces of work on display. Suffice it to say that I was somewhat dazzled by it all, and kicked myself for not coming down earlier in the week.

Hands-on workshops were conducted throughout the day, as well as various demonstrations of crafts. Beading seemed very popular & I was able to sign myself up for 2 one-hour courses in my afternoon there.

The first one was to make a "Sweetheart" necklace, beading technique using special Nymo thread & needle. Unfortunately, due the short time for the class, most of us could not finish doing the necklace on the spot. The poor instructor had obviously anticipated this, so she got us to do part of the main chain first, and then to quickly attch the special heart-shaped bead & start making the tassels, so that we would be able to finish off things ourselves later. The way that the workshop "rooms" were set up were also not very conducive as the lighting was not ideal, especially for working with the bright shiny beads & the fine-eyed needles.

Nonetheless we all got the gist of things & I was able to finish my necklace off myself, which I finally did today.

The next class was to make a free-form wire bead necklace, using tools that I am familiar with at work - pliers, wire, wire cutters !
However, the tme was again, rather too short for someone who has never tried this before, so I did not manage to finish making the necklace there.Also, I found it difficult that the instructor did not give the "big picture" first, that is to explain the steps that we were taking & how we were going to construct a necklace out of what we were doing, which made it difficult to me to follow.
Anyway, I decided to purchase the necessary tools ( pliers, wire cutter, etc ) to enable to complete my work. This is what it looks like finally.


Also found out that I could attend classes to learn how to make glass beads, which I can then use in my future jewellery-making attempts, so have signed up for those classes in about 2 weeks'time. Am looking forward to creating more things....