Getting Crafty in Africa

Sad attempt at sewing, actually a third sad attempt.
Originally uploaded by mralles

So it turns out that I am about as crafty in Cape Verde as I am in the United States. Not so much. In November I decided to be a joiner and attend a week-long workshop at the Brazilian Cultural Center to make holiday decorations. Being that we are going to stay put for the holiday season, I thought it would be a good idea to brighten our house with some festive decor.

After the first night was spent listening to the instructor, in Portuguese, lecture us on the appropriate colors of the holidays season [don’t you dare use purple to decorate your Christmas Tree!] I was not sure I was even going to return the second night. Turns out, I have nothing else to do. So I showed up on Tuesday with my homework complete. I was to cut out fabric Christmas Trees. Upon arrival at class I found out we were going to have to sew these things together, turn them inside out, stuff them and make little pillow ornaments out of them (see lead photo). I thought, “How hard could that be?” Wow. Sewing. Way hard. To add insult to injury I attended this class with two women, Joy who is an exceptional sewer and Susan who certainly understated her experience sewing, both from different generations than me, if you know where I am going with this. Not to replay the whole conversation, but at one point it was said, “Your mother doesn't sew, how does she get through life?”

On night three, I have decided I am just done sewing. I really don't care if everyone in the class has made four different ornaments and I have yet to finish my one. I am done. I eye the glue gun when I get there and am ready to rock it out with that. The whole night everyone is telling me how beautiful my candy dish looks the way I decorated it with these red and green rocks, so I think I am doing a fantastic job. Until I get home and show said candy dish to my lovely husband. That is when I realize this candy dish is actually kind of ugly (though now I secretly love it). What's worse is that I had three burnt fingers to show for it.

The fourth night Susan had the brilliant idea to bring wine to class. Not only did this loosen all of us up (and that is when my creative juices really took off), but it also offered us a new prop to decorate. Wine bottles!

In the end, the workshop was a lot of fun and I made several neat little decorations from it. Each year I will take these decorations out at holiday times and think of purple not being the right color, sewing is not for me, burnt glue gun fingers, and that wine makes everything just a little more fun.

Happy Holidays!