Creativ Festival - Days 1 & 2

I'm back to the land of the living after spending 5 days in my version of stitching heaven. I stitched, I visited, I attempted to walk the show floor..... In short, it was wonderful.


Here's a review (and picture intensive post) of my first two days at the show.


Day 1 - Class: Solitary Flight
Instructor: Anna-Marie Winter


This was a full-day class (6 hours of instruction) and a wonderful way to start the show. I fell in love with this kimono in the show brochure. It's even more lovely in real life. Here's a picture of the cover picture for the graph:

And here's my progress on it when class was over:

It's difficult to get much done on this piece in class since the entire background must be stitched before placing the dragonfly and the grasses can be stitched. The background is stitched in Silk Mori (which I love) and the dragonfly and grasses done in a variety of golds from Kreinik. I can't wait to return to work on this one more. Did I mention I love working with silk?

After class was over I attended a welcome reception put on by the show. It wasn't really great or anything worthy of note, beyond the fact that door prizes were awarded (I didn't win a thing, naturally) and Anna-Marie gave a great (and short) lecture of cyber classes at NeedleArtWorks and awarded some $50 gift certificates for a cyber class (which I also didn't win :-( ).

Day 2 - Class: Triangulations
Instructor: Anna-Marie Winter

This was a half-day class again with Anna-Marie. The model for this class had many of us drooling as it's simply stunning. The fibres are just yummy to play with (again, more silk - did I mention I love silk????) and the overall size of the piece isn't too large. This will likely be one of the first projects I return to once the bleedin' models are finished.

Here's a picture of the graph:

And here's how far I got in class - although I admit to not adding any of the metallics in class because I'd rather save them for the very end. I find the metallics can mess up the silk, so I'd rather wait until I won't be working with the silks any more on the piece.

The dark blue is Silk Mori and the lighter blue is Silk Serica. It's so pretty in real life. It uses silks. I like silks a lot. Did I mention that already?

Day 2 - Class: Jade Dragon
Instructor: Laura from Enchanting Lair

The afternoon of Day 2 brought me to another short class, but this time from Enchanting Lair. I love little dragons and this one is done in some yummier than yummy silks again. I think I'm working up to an obsession with silks. But I digress.....

The piece uses Northern Lights, Caron Waterlilies and a bunch of Kreiniks. We didn't get a whole lot done in class as Laura was giving us great instructions, but I did get to play with the Northern Lights silks which are new to me. They were lovely. I'm still stroking one skein every now and then.

Here's the graph picture:

Sorry the picture isn't great - I'm no photographer! Go check out Enchanting Lair's site for a better shot. Here's all I got stitched in class:

I didn't get much done because I was listening more than stitching. Well, okay, I was playing with the silks a bit too. They're so pretty. And soft. And they glide through fabric like a hot knife through butter. Silk. ahhhhhhhhh............

I enjoyed this class thoroughly and enjoyed sharing ideas with Laura and talking about next year and some potential classes. That's all I'm saying.

The show floor wasn't yet open, so no shopping yet. After my class I went to the chatter about dolls given by Elinor Peace Bailey. It was an interesting chat and her dolls are simply stunning - they're so expressive and so far beyond my skills that it's humbling. Elinor is a very funny lady and although doll making doesn't appeal to me, I enjoyed the lecture.

I think that's all for today - I'm sure I've made a few web browsers weep and I apologise if the pictures were too much.

Just wait until you hear about my other classes, the banquet and the unintentional driving tour I had of Toronto.........