[Nfb-krafters-korner] I'm home!

[walhoframona at gmail.com]

I am back from my dream-of-a-lifetime cruise through the Panama Canal. I won't report on much, but there were some very interesting things in crafting that I thought this group might like to know about. There was a meeting scheduled on sea days each morning for knitters and crafters, and I met about fifteen women, many very versatile and all using different techniques. Since they came from Canada, Britain, Australia and more, that is not surprising. I learned about cast on methods I had never heard of before.

There was also a box-making class—origami of course, and the next day we decorated the lids to the boxes. Again, I met interesting people.

Then we took a jewelry-making tour in Cartagena Columbia where they used emeralds directly from a local mine. We were instructed by students at the school and made earings, pendants, rings, and bracelets. Not polished emeralds, but very beautiful. I got a picture of myself operating the machine that presses bars of heated silver into smaller and longer bars until they are wires about fifteen feet long.

In Costa Rico I found a pair of earings made of palm leaves and saw the tools they use for carding wool. We saw plants whose leaves are used for making rubs and other medicines, ate cactus, watched tortilla-making and on and on. And that does not count the day we went through the Canal. 
If people want to hear more about the trip, I would be glad to do a Monday night chat.

Ramona