A couple of weekends ago I was back at the Village Continuum Festival, teaching a lovely and keen group of people the basics of leather craft. It's my third year of teaching at the festival and the second time I've run the Introduction to Leather Craft workshop. At my first Village Continuum Festival I taught a two day shoe making workshop.

It was lovely to be running the same workshop again - I felt as if I had a much better idea of what I was doing, how I wanted to run the workshop and what I wanted to teach. Of course the things I was teaching aren't necessarily the same as the things that the people in the class wanted or needed to learn from me. Sometimes a chance remark can spark a huge realisation and we don't even know.

I love seeing people mastering a new skill. Megan from Canberra didn't have any sewing or crafting experience before the workshop. She chose to do the most difficult stitch and she nailed it. It was a good lesson for me in letting people do what they want to do without too much emphasis on how hard it is - sometimes if we don't know something is meant to be difficult we do it without any trouble at all!

As usual, all the finished pouches were gorgeous and reflected the unique personalities of their owners. My favourite part of any workshop is seeing what people come up with using the same basic raw materials. There's always such a variety in the finished product even though everyone started with the same two pieces of kangaroo skin leather.

We even had some cross crafting going on again with the calendula balm made by Sue in the Herbalism workshop being used to oil some of the pouches. Other pouches were burnished or waxed and some were left natural. Over time the oils from their owner's fingers will darken the leather.

Thanks to all the lovely people who came to the workshop. It was such a joy to be working with you all!