Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Craft Camp should come with a warning

The thing they don't tell you about Craft Camp is that while those Craft Camp companions of yours are seducing you with their excellent cooking, fine company and luxurious accommodation, they are also teaching you skills.  What's wrong with that, you might ask?  Nothing except now you will be one of the very few parents from your kid's school class Who Can Sew, so next thing you know you'll be signed up to make 12 elasticated neckties and two sixties monochrome shift dresses, which you never thought would happen when you sent your kid off to school all those years ago, safe in the knowledge that you couldn't sew.  (It's not the sewing that's so bad, I quite enjoyed making the first necktie, using this excellent pattern.  But now I'm in the middle of making the next 11 which is production line sewing: cue me with my limited attention span feeling like the kid in the back of the car on a long trip whining are we there yet? as I cut-cut-cut and iron-iron-iron and sew-sew-sew.)  Luckily Pea Soup recommended the Desert Island Discs podcasts from the BBC, so listening to Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon has made the afternoon less onerous, but more expensive.  I'm embarrassed to admit it, but somehow I did not have Paul Simon's Slip Slidin' Away on my ipod before today.



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So there you have it.  By all means, go off to Craft Camp and have a hoot with the girls, but just know that you when it's all over you'll suddenly have all this extra work to do and no money.  Somebody should warn you, and it might as well be me.

10 comments:

  1. Heh, BTW, great seeing you at Cream Camp xx

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  2. You do know that this only leads to taking up pants, repairing zippers, and sewing on buttons for every person you know???

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  3. Oh stop complaining. All good things come with a price. It could be worse, you could have added inches to your hips with all that good food, but no. Not you. All you need to do is sew a few things. I would have gotten the inches AND had to sew. That's my luck. :)

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  4. Ha, I always have the best excuses- 'I'm a single parent', and 'I work full time'. Unfortunatley the kid volunteers me for EVERYTHING so I give in sometimes :)

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  5. I'm well warned. She invited me, you know. But obviously just getting there would bankrupt me to start with...

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  6. Last week the kid volunteered me to demonstrate playing the violin, and instrument I haven't played regularly for 15 years. The other musical parents who were volunteeredby their kids are professionals. I wish he'd volunteered me for sewing instead.

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  7. I had to make about 20 sets of cow horns for a Prep concert one year. It only involved painting...and I suspect "I can't paint" wouldn't have cut it. Although I never did go to kinder, so perhaps I could have pleaded ignorance of the finer art of wielding a paint brush?

    You're a good woman doing all that sewing.

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  8. Somehow, Clare and Ally's school doesn't know I can sew. I'm not about to change that (production line sewing...yuuurk).
    I read something a while ago about only taking on projects that give you joy. This is about the hems, zips and buttons, not school concert stuff which ends up in a great, fun production. I do mending and alterations for family and dear friends. No one else. So many random people want me to sew stuff for them. "Can you make a cushion exactly like this one?","Can you fix this for me?", "If I get you the pattern can you sew this up for me?". I've HAD to hone my "no" skills or be swamped by sewing from people I hardly know.

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  9. just one dollop jennyThu Sept 15, 07:01:00 pm GMT+10

    Hear, hear. fourteen pairs of yellow and orange leggings and 14 penguin suits later...

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  10. Oh there is always a price to pay for the fun, just like Mama said! :-)

    What some very professional looking neckties you've whipped up!

    Everybody knows that NO ONE is asking Aunty Evil to sew anything!

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