Tea Towel -arama

Suzie Stanford's Tea Towel chairs. 

Mon Dieu!

Paris  Made By Hand

Welcome to the Machine Age!

I am now a real woman! A sewing machine virgin no longer.  No more old skool hand sewing of, well, everything I make. I can jump on a Janome and whizz up a side seam with the best of them.

These two cushions in two hours. A Mrs Smith record.

Thanks for the intervention Mrs B and Eve Craft Princess! It's a brave new world that you have opened up to me now.  And thanks for finding the grouse tea towel Mrs B.  Thanks Aunty Shazza for the cookie pie. What an ace design!

I love the friendships I have developed through craft. 

Saturday afternoon  I sat in the beautiful home of Mrs B, as the divine ladies of the coven convened for our sewing machine session. There was a machine for each of us on the table amongst the scissors and off cuts, ribbon and that mustard fringe that we all think might have potential but no one quite knows what to do with it and a bowl of jaffas. We drank exotic tea that came, not contained in any common tea bag - but held inside an 'infusion pod' (I shit you not!) We shared much encouragement and learnin', swearing and laughing, sewing and admiring and whirring with ideas.  I sat in that warm kitchen on that wet afternoon feeling truly blessed.

Truly blessed. 

Tops!

How good was Masterchef?

Julie really pulled it off and gave hope to the rest of us messy and disorganized cooks that while we may work up a sweat and create chaos, it's all about how it tastes in the end.

Mind you I don't think I've ever worked up quite THAT much sweat in the kitchen,

Nice work, love.

Media Ho!

Look at craft getting some press in the local rag (The Saturday Examiner July 11 2009 p35-37). I was just a tag-along to the real crafty ladies being interviewed - Mrs B, Eve Craft Princess, Little Jenny Wren, the Seworld ladies and Black-Eyed Susie. 

My crochet-in-progress has come up a treat in the pic, don't you think?  I am quite proud of it, even though it remains unfinished. You look beautiful, Mrs B.  and the vinyl is ace! 

Brown Owls Launceston is getting bigger by the day. I can feel the momentum growing and can't wait to get into it again. We opted for a late July meeting and it feels like its been a very long time between drinks, so to speak. Note to self - no more than 4 weeks between crafty meetings or withdrawal symptoms are likely. 

The luthier was on the radio last week and in the Saturday paper. 

Us Smith's are such media ho's.

She's alright ..

This is a true story, at least as I remember it. It's a story I have often told after a few sherberts at a dinner party and the like, so I thought, what the hell, I'll share it with you. It may amuse.

The following details a conversation witnessed by me, the man who is now my husband (who can bear witness to the truth of the tale) and a few of my political science/women's studies student mates, in a cold, old uni share house in Battery Point, Hobart in the mid 90's.

The conversation occurred between Protagonist A and B, lets call them Cags and Donny-  two laconic, slow-talkin' rural boys from the midlands of Tasmania, complete with navy jumpers, chambray shirts with the collars turned up, jeans (one of the boys is inexplicably wearing a pair of women's 501's) and R.M. Williams boots. Both boys are freshly returned from separate trips abroad. You know the sort of thing - the young person's 'rites of passage' style journey through Europe and the USA - complete with Kontiki tours and the like.  

This conversation was the mutual summing up of the cultural journey and personal growth they experienced on their trip. Warning: It does contain swearing, and please be aware that the views expressed below are those of the protagonists and certainly not those of the blog author. 

Cags - Did you go to America? 

Donny - Yep.

Cags - Did you go to Universal Studios?

Donny - Yep ... ( long pause) 

It was fucked.

Cags -  Naaah, I loiked it.

Donny  - Naaah, it was fucked.

Cags - Naah I loiked it. 

Donny - Naah, it was fucked.

Cags - Yeah, it was fucked ...

(pause)

but I loiked it.

 (They pause to regroup.) 

Cags - Did you go to Europe?

Donny - Yeah. It was fucked. (He scoffs and goes on) If you wanna go somewhere f'ken borin', go to the Louvre.

Cags - What about Paris? Did you loike Paris?

Donny - Paris smells like human piss. Actually, the whole of Europe smells like human piss.

(long pause) 

Except Greece  ... she's alright Greece.