I’ve just started studying Certificate II Visual Arts & Contemporary Craft – Fibre, Fashion, and Fantasy. It’s shaping up to be a good course. It goes for the full year, 6 hours a week in the classroom and 6 hours homework. So far it’s taken me longer to get the homework done. It’s a bit weird getting back into the habit of studying. I haven’t done any formal study for about 8 years. I’m enjoying it though. We started with traditional embroidery. Lots of the school kids hadn’t done any before so it’s all new to them. I’m going through it okay because I’ve done so much cross stitch and already knew some of the other basic stitches. I’ve succeeded with French Knots!!!! which I hadn’t previously been able to master and I found out I was doing chain stitch incorrectly so I’ve fixed that now too. Thursday afternoon we had to draw some flowers which later we’ll be stitching. By the end of the afternoon I was happy with my drawings and I’m looking forward to doing some more. Going to college, mixing with the other students and doing this course is boosting my confidence and helping me to get back into the swing of society.

I stressed out a bit about my first assignment but I think it’s okay. I talked to some of the others about what they did and it looks like I’m on the right track. I’m not sure if our assignments get marked as we go along or at the end of the term or semester or at the end of the year. I’ll try and remember to ask next week.

I’m still having difficulties with the pressure Centrelink is putting on me but the course meets part of my mutual obligation requirements so that’s a good thing.

I’ll either take some photos or scan my embroidery and other projects and upload them here.