Country Craft Groups Rock!

They really do! Shortly after we came to Carnamah I started attending the Carnamah Craft Group because I knew if I didn't do something to meet people I would just hide at home. That being my natural tendency.
When I turned up, the wife of the new second man at the police station, the ladies were so welcoming and lovely that I felt comfortable immediately and hardly felt shy at all! It was such a pleasure to be able to relax in other women's company when you are new to town, especially when your a confirmed Southerner (south west Australian - Albany, about as far south as you can get without setting up in Antarctica!) and this was the first time I'd ever lived so far north!
They weren't all from Carnamah either. Farms were spread all over the place and there was one lady who travelled from Perenjori (about 56 kms from Carnamah!) to come every Wednesday, even though sometimes she was late because she'd had to move trucks, or silos or some other grain farming apparatus! And another lady who lived in Coorow, 27kms from Carnamah but she had so many stories to tell about farming when she was a young wife and they lived in Winchester, a township that now no longer exists but used to be somewhere between Coorow and Carnamah.
The stories and the histories of farming, mostly grain, were so interesting! I didn't know anything about it so it was all new! The price for wheat versus canola and how they fluctuated between seeding and harvest. The constant looking to the skies to see if the rain would come or if it would hold off, depending on which season it was. The combined hilarity at the misfortunes of one farmer who'd managed to seed 20 acres of nothing after forgetting to turn the fan on the air-seeder and having to go back and do the whole thing again into the night.
And then there was the craft! Such skilled hands and such patience! Most of the ladies did patchwork and the constant search for new fabric and techniques quite often sounded like a foreign language to me. I'm not nearly patient enough or precise enough to really enjoy patchwork but the quilts turned out by these ladies was really something to see! So detailed! So beautiful and such colours! All passed through the deep conversations in the cutting out room where those who were interested could gather around the bits and pieces of blocks and borders and help the quilter make the decisions about layout, whether this block would be better near this one and give advise when they'd managed to sew something on backwards again!
I could sit and knit or cross-stitch and listen to the easy flow of conversation and feel comfortable. It really was lovely.
But now I have to leave!

Yesterday was my last craft day and the ladies were so sweet and made up a morning tea for everyone and I brought my boxes of completed craft items, (knitted, cross-stitched, tatted necklace pendants, you name it! It was probably there!) I wanted everyone to have something to remember me by but I also wanted to get rid of some of my surplus! So the deal was, take one thing, but if you want anything else you have to pay. I hate doing that, I always feel so uncomfortable when I ask friends to pay for things but most of the items had prices on them from stalls I'd run before so it was a little easier. They brought so much stuff! I still have heaps left over but it all fits in the boxes better than when I brought them in and I have a nice little bit of cash in my pocket for our move!
And then Maxine brought me this square parcel and in an off-hand sort of way said "We wanted to give you a knitted blanket but you didn't really give us enough time to do one for you so we brought you the wool for one. We expect it done before you leave!" (tongue-in-cheek).
To me this seemed totally reasonable. I'd have enjoyed a gift of knitting yarn a lot more than some other things so I opened up the parcel, expecting balls of yarn...
...and instead was presented with the loveliest little knee quilt I've ever seen, with each of the blocks done by one of the ladies at craft. I was so touched!!

This just shows how preoccupied I can get when I'm knitting! They planned all this while I was at craft. Those conversations in the cutting room weren't all about their quilts but about the one they were making for me! I usually leave at 1pm while craft continues on till 3pm but last week I stayed till about 1.30pm and they needed me to go to finish the quilt!

I love it! I love the little bit of actual knitting in the middle with it's tiny needles and their smiley faces. I love the thought and care that's been put into the whole thing. I just love it!!

So, to everyone at craft, Ines, Yvonne, Elaine, Joan (who couldn't be there. She's got her own moving saga to go!) Chris, Jodi, Maxine, Rhonda Wellington and Rhonda Walsh, Helen who walks up from her exercise class and Sandie who owns the only fabric and haberdashery store in town, to you all! I salute you!!

You are all women whose worth is far above rubies! 

God Bless you all!

Dx