Mr Gocco

Yesterday I spent some quality time with Mr Gocco and once again rekindled my love for him.

I seriously love that machine.

I printed some little girl panels

I printed some badge panels
and I printed some little owls.

Today I was invited to go and talk to the group at the Ballarat Quilt -In .

I had a blast ! They were a very fun bunch of people and they kindly laughed in all the right places ! I raved on and on about craft and blogging and even did a bit of shopping before I left.

Now if only I could manage a crafty finish tomorrow, without any major mishaps......I could be heading to weekend nirvana !

Could you just lift your feet?

I have been having a bit of a blog-tidy for the start of the holidays. It has always bothered me that when I make stories on my blog, they run backwards, and they have other posts in the middle and generally aren't all that readable.

So yesterday I made two new pages...see up there under the header? I made a new page for Ernst's story and a new page for the Bus Stop story (that bus stop page took hours !!!!! I am not joking, so if it's a bit wonky just don't tell me, I am ignoring it!).

This is one of two cushions covers I whipped up on Monday from the delightful new range of fabrics from the talented Melly for Creative Abundance. The fabric is called 'Where the wind blows' and it features whimsical hot air balloons, little seedy pods , flowers, butterflies, and my favourites, the pinwheels. It also has the teeniest tiny text on it that just killed me when I saw it.

Melly generously sent me a stack of fat quarters - see no matter how much I want to seethe with jealousy over her amazing talents, she subverts me by being totally gorgeous and generous ! This new line of fabric will be available in a few weeks , so have a quiet word in the ear of your local patchwork / craft shop owner and get your hands on some.

Tonight, I am attending the ASG Convention as a guest, after-dinner speaker. In some ways I am quite calm about these speaking things - I mean, I get to talk about sewing and blogging so its not as if I will run out of things to say......but this is the first time I am 'talking' outside my comfort zone. The other times I have always had a fairly stacked audience with at least the odd half-dozen bloggers that I 'blog-know' smiling and nodding at me from their seats. I have to admit to having the weird stomach flip-flops when I think about tonight. I mean this is a guild for goodness sake, a guild ! What if there is a secret handshake? Hell what if they take one look at my 'stuff ' and kick me out.... I'm hoping they serve the audience alcohol at dinner.

pooped with a capital P

Once again I seem to have lost a week. This most recent week has been lost in a flurry of costume sewing and long long looooong days at work.
Last weekend Annie (assistant extraordinaire) and I drove flew, trained and bussed to the Stitches and Craft show in Sydney.
Yes I know that's a long way to go for a craft show but it was definitely worth it.

You have probably read heaps of accounts of all the fun and craziness of the show by now, so I am just going to add a few things.

The talent in the incubator was mind-blowing, I caught up with old friends that I already knew, met people who feel like old friends already, and met some brand spanking freshly minted friends as well.

(me, knitting sprouts, Anita, Jo Jo, Chookyblue, Flowergarden, Daisychain

and I have no idea why I am poking my bum out in this photo,)

I gave two little studio talks about blogging and believe I left a certain impression on people in attendance (especially the first talk where I may or may not have pulled my clothes out of the suitcase along with some toys for the display, knocked the whiteboard to the ground and cut my finger so badly that an audience member had to give me a band-aid).

(and yes that is a real live man in the audience there and me explaining that the bleeding just won't stop)

Lets just say that "professional" would not be a word used on the feedback forms. But you know what , and I am surprised I am saying this, I LOVED it.
I mean I really loved it - so I rambled in places and went of on tangents and even managed to get a bit of whinge in there about Mr Ric-Rac and the teenagers but I got to talk about something I really love (blogging) to a group of people who all seemed to be that same kind of wonderful crazy that you find in crafters.

Pencil skirts and pointers it certainly wasn't, but it was heaps of fun and I wish I had more time to meet everyone and have a cuppa with them and find out what they wanted to know and what excited them about craft and blogging.......

So ummmm, Living Creatively - next time I might need an hour !