Monday, October 23, 2006
CreativFestival Fall 2006 Report
As I've mentioned before, this was the first year in many that I found classes I wanted to take and some interest in going to the CreativFestival. Weekend of October 20-22 was the event at the Metro Toronto Convention Center South Building.
I was signed on for two knitting classes, both on Cables, one with Lily Chin and one with Fiona Ellis.
Reversible Cables with Lily Chin
Lily is a great teacher who has a lot of energy. She pepper the informative class with her great laugh and fun stories. The time just flies by and I was so inspired to learn new techniques. She strongly encourages us to think freely with what can be done with revisable cables. She also brought along a lot of her own designs and patterns to help inspire us and show us what more advanced techniques can be achieved. I particularly enjoyed seeing some of her sketches and swatches to the final products. It just reminds us that we need to put in the work, swatch and there was a lot of work behind the finished product.I found seeing that so inspirational.
Inspired Cable Knits with Fiona Ellis
I was speaking with another person in the Lily Chin class who was saying that she did not enjoy the class with Fiona. However, I could not compared them and found the two to be enjoyable. I have to say that the style of the class was much more workshop than instructional. You learned by trying things and learning and asking questions. From Beginner to more advanced students will get out of the class what they were willing to do and interact with Fiona. Fiona was super friendly and easy to speak with. I had a good opportunity to try some different cables and practice and try to figure out how to cable without the cable needle.
Fiona also mentioned that she's got a new book coming out, I'm looking forward to seeing that.
I would recommend both classes if they come your way. I got so much inspiration and information out of the classes that I'm going to keep my eyes open for more classes in the future. I've been very much looking to learning new skills and sometimes, it's really much easier to be taught than to figure it out yourself.
Door Prizes
I headed into the market two days, Friday night with my sister (who does beading) and once again alone on Saturday. I ended up with two door prize ballots, which I put in the 'basket' on Saturday morning before heading off to do my shopping. I had spent Friday night looking at different parts of the show while my sister shopped the bead merchants. And would you know it I heard my name for the door prizes. I go and claim my prize (1 packet of red heart yarn) and the lady tells me that there's a "Mary Yan" who also won. I'm thinking that's really odd but didn't give it another thought. At the end of my time at the market, I had a few minutes and "Mary Yan" was bothering me. It's a common mistake made on my name. I thought I'd better to check the winners list and it turns out "Mary" also lived in the same town I did. I just had to ask the lady to check the other ticket for me to see if it was also me. IT WAS!!! So, I won two door prizes. She gave me more yarn and a great cross stitch book. I felt so lucky. What are the chances! It was so much fun!
Free Yarn:
That wasn't the only score of the weekend, In the Lily Chin class we got a ball Tribeca from her line of mohair and in the Fiona Ellis class we got this new yarn Perth. It was much raved in class by my class mates. I found it not to be as easy to use as they did since it did split on me, but it does a great job showing off cables.
I'm really looking forward to really exploring some cable work with all this new yarn!
Stash:
On the shopping front, here's my additions to my stash.
I had a great chat with Judy from JBW Designs and got some of her new designs which I love. I also got to see some of Maureen Appleton's work in person. They were so beautiful. To be honest, I've never been interested in her work before. The photography really doesn't do it justice, I did fall in love with some of her designs. I had to come home with her "Be Mine" silk kit.
As I expected, most of the show was scrapbooking, quilting and beading. There was just a little bit of yarn. (Frolic was so much better.) And with Cedar Hill, Crossed Wing Collection, JBW Designs, Maureen Appleton, Britstitch showing, there was at least some Cross-stitch showing. It really helped make the show more interesting for me. There was NO needlework at all!
On the quilting side, while there were quit a few merchants, I found the styles of the quilts to be more folksy than my liking. So, in the end, I was really just looking at tools and not fabric or patterns or designs. I found out about a show that's going to be in November at the Japanese Cultural Center put on by the York Heritage Quild, so, I might go to that. I got such great deals on the tools that I've been looking for, it was still a great time!
With this experience I did not find that it changed my impressions of the show much at all, but the conference classes is something I'll keep my eyes on since that part was great. I think for yarn, I'm better off going to a show like frolic or other specialty shows and for cross-stitch... I'm just about out of luck outside my 'in' with my friends at the official retail trade shows. I've still not been to the shows like CATS in the US, but it's quite pricey. It's hardly surprising that there seems to be such a small network of cross-stitchers in Canada. There seems to be few sources for us here outside of our LNS.
Labels: Cross-Stitch, Knitting
