tiny happy

Last weekend's Soul Craft Festival was a beauty. It was pretty special to be among so many friends and friends-to-be, surrounded by people who love making things and talking about making things as much as I do.

As well as seeing Felicia and Claire and the rest of the hard-working team, I was lucky enough to hang out with my friend Lizzie and Kate James, both of whom are inspiring artists. I loved listening to them talk about their work and plans. 

On my last evening there, I had a glass of wine with Jen and Jon of Grainline Studio and Andrea Mowry and that was such a treat.

Above you'll see the only photos I managed to take while I was in Melbourne. I'm quite hopeless at documenting things – probably because I get really immersed in what I'm doing and forget all about it. But anyway, from the top:

a ++ my view from the plane window, a glimpse of Melbourne…

b ++ another view: this one was from my hotel room and looks rural, but it was just down the road from the event. It's hard to express how much I loved staying in this lovely hotel room by myself, but with friends down the hall to visit each evening.

c ++ a quick snap of my teaching space before the first workshop. We had big wooden tables with jars of bright poppies (the main festival room had tables absolutely lined with these poppies). I taught three classes over the weekend, and loved meeting so many joyful and creative students, keen to stitch together and get to know each other.

d ++ this is a sample I made for one of my workshops, to show how some of the stitches we learned could be applied in a cluster, to a piece of clothing or another project. I used some blue linen for this, and it's a free pattern from Peppermint Magazine you can find here.

If you'd like to see some better photos of the festival, including some of the embroidery that students made, you can search the hashtag #soulcraftfestival on Instagram (or click here).

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