Exhausted But Happy!

PHEW! What a big end to the week I've had!! You see, this weekend was the fourth annual Creative Craft Retreat and for the fourth time, I was asked to teach a class. So my weekend has been spent teaching some lovely ladies how to make my "Blooming Butterflies" tote bag and journal cover ...

We all headed about 45 minutes north of Toowoomba to Lake Perseverance for a weekend of crafting, chatting, relaxing and eating meals that someone else had prepared and cleaned up after - YAY! :0)

Here we all are! There's me second from the left and if you take a peek at the pretty lady in the bright blue top third from the right, you'll find it's the clever and talented Val Laird. She's also taught at all four Creative Craft Retreats ... cos her daughter Janelle is the main instigator! Tee! Hee! Hee! Lovely as always to catch up with Val!

I had five lovely ladies playing at my table and they did a FABULOUS job on their projects. As well as that, they were very low-maintenance students! Tee! Hee! Hee! Here they are all hard at work putting their applique` designs on their patchwork panels on Friday night ... except for Ros in the back corner, who was running a bear-making production line. :0)

They look very industrious, don't they! :0) They sure were ... all weekend! The first to complete their bag was Judith. Now ... when I teach a class, I stress to the students that their project does NOT have to look exactly like mine ... in fact, they are encouraged to think of the pattern as a starting point to add to, change and adapt to make it their own and Judith certainly grabbed that concept and ran with it! :0)

Judith found she didn't have a big enough piece of fabric for the circle base, so she joined a couple of pieces and made an oval. And when she decided that she didn't like the 'grass' she'd stitched at the bottom of the flower stems ... well ... she just added a couple of rather cute witchetty grubs to cover it! :0) She then rummaged through her left over bits, added a few fabrics from my little stash of off-cuts that I made available for the gals to play with and ...

VOILA! A GORGEOUS patchwork journal cover with some striking echinacea flowers - well done, Judith!! Next to finish her bag (after a minor hiccup where the lining was almost put in upside down despite sticking her head in the bag to check which way the pocket went! Tee! Hee! Hee!) was Jan ...

Aren't Jan's fabrics yummy?! I especially loved the stripe fabric ... it reminds me of Fruit Tingles lollies ... yum! :0) Now, Jan also had a bit of show-and-tell with her ... a quilt she'd bought as a kit a few years ago. It had sat in her cupboard patiently waiting to be made up until last year, when Jan joined Val's embroidery class and was inspired to dig her kit out and get working on the stitcheries. Boy, is she glad now that she did! :0)

Isn't it FABULOUS! The stitcheries are in lovely deep jewel colours and the sashings are shades of autumn - lovely work, Jan! :0) Not far behind Jan in finishing was Chris. (Yes, it did get a little confusing sometimes to have a 'Kris' and a 'Chris' at the same table! Tee! Hee! Hee!)

Rich reds and blues for Chris with cheerful golden daisies. Well done Chris!! :0) And only a draw-string-thread behind in finishing was Natalie, who made a cute "Nighttime Nara Bear" with me at last year's retreat. Natalie was working only with fabrics that she could find in her limited stash, but her bag still came up a treat ...

It just goes to show that when you add a bit of creativity to some limited craft supplies, she can still weave some magic! Lovely effort, Nat!! :0) And the last of our merry bunch (and believe me, there was LOTS of merriment and laughter in our corner! Tee! Hee! Hee!) was Ros, who managed to finish off two bears that she'd worked on before the retreat and made outfits for three of her six bears ...

I told Ros that she now has her very own "Bear Hug"! :0) The red check dress was made from a ruched pillow case that Ros started making when she was at school ... and never finished. She says she could never quite bring herself to throw it out ... and now it's been 're-purposed' to become a fashionably pinafore for a little pink bear ... who was made from Ros's old dressing gown! :0) See ... when life gives you scraps and hand-me-downs ... make some craft projects that everyone will be envious of! :0)

So, that's how I've spent my weekend. Thanks for a fun time, gals ... see you again next year! But right now, I think I've earned a little break, so I shall go rustle up a boiled egg for dinner and watch the X Factor. Hope all of my blogging buddies have had an equally creative weekend! :0) Til next time ...

BEAR HUGS!

CHEERS!

KRIS