crundy1

Where I live

I live in Australia's capital. For those outside Australia, no that's not Sydney - it's Canberra. We Canberrans love to refer to our home as the 'bush-capital. It's a small town with big-town ideas. It's where the federal government lives and a lot of the town is made up of public servants, and that includes me.

There are a couple of rumours about Canberra:

• it's really boring. We Canberrans started that rumour. We don't want people outside the place knowing what a great place it is to live, or they'd all want to come here.

• it's really cold. Yes it is. In winter. In the summer, it's beautiful.

Sewing

I am (largely) self taught. I have a battered old Toyota sewing machine and an overlocker (that I haven't used for years). I find places like quilt fairs completely overwhelming. There seems to be so many rules! As such I mostly sew for myself and give some items away. I have tried selling at a couple of local craft markets, but haven't had much success there. I mostly make handbags.Canberra is plastic bag free, so I make a lot of fold-up shopping totes. They make great gifts.

Knitting and crochet

I have been knitting and crocheting for a few years. Again, am mostly self-taught (hurray for YouTube). My Mum is an excellent knitter, but lives in another hemisphere, and I don't see her very often.

Paper crafts

I have been scrapbooking and card making for a little over a decade. Most of the swaps I have participated in are card swaps (not on swap-bot) so these are the swaps that I feel most comfortable in (for the moment - am keen to branch out).

My style / colour preferences

I love black, white and grey and have quite a pared back style. It sounds boring and it sounds as though you can throw things together quickly, but making things simple and striking is really difficult (for me - those with more of a design bent might work more quickly). I also find that if I stick with this muted colour palette: - everything matches - you can play with patterns and textures more and things don't compete with eachother.