Fall 2009 Creativ Festival – Part One

The Creativ Festival this year was great fun, even if it didn’t turn out exactly as planned.  Teresa Wentzler, one of my all time favourite cross stitch designers and a genuinely nice person, wasn’t able to make it because she came down the flu just before she was due to fly up.  Sadly, two of her classes were cancelled (crewel and bargello), but Erica of Erica’s Places and model stitch extraordinarie and Jennifer Aikman-Smith of Dragon Dreams were able to pull everything together and the rest of Teresa’s classes went off smoothly.  Erica taught TW’s Cutwork Compass Rose and Sparkling Hearts classes and helped Jennifer with the joint TW/Jennifer class Here Be Tiny Dragons.  Jennifer handled Summer Keep/Winter Keep on her own, and also presented the Sunday morning creativity lecture by herself.

Jennifer and Erica did a wonderful job of making sure that all of the rest of us had a great weekend.  They went above and beyond the call of duty in order to make sure that  fellow stitchers enjoyed themselves.  Thank you, ladies.  You did great!  And we all appreciated it more than we were able to express to you.

I understand that TW is doing much better, and was very disappointed she wasn’t able to make it.  I think I can safely say we were all sad she wasn’t there, but we are all glad she is recovering quickly.

So, on to the pictures of my classes pieces.  I don’t have much done yet, so use your imagination!  I will, of course, post pictures as I complete them, whenever that will be.

Laura Dickson's Framing Class

Laura Dickson of Enchanting Lair taught a framing class.  I took along my H fairy, and here she is hanging on my wall.  The class was great, and I feel confident enough to try framing some of my other pieces myself.

TW's Cutwork Compass Rose

This was one of the classes Erica taught, and she did a super job tackling cutwork with students who had never done it before.  Rather than work on the teaching piece, I started the actual design.  (I’ve done a fair amount of cutwork.)  When done, this will have cutwork in the centre and the corners, and will have a bunch of speciality stitches in this over-dyed thread and two blue-green Dinky Dyes over-dyed cotton threads.

TW's Sparkling Hearts

This design is mostly beads, and is so sparkly!  There is a bonus chart in the class kit for a back, which I may try to do, recharting it for braids or floss so I don’t need to go out and buy 10 packages of Mill Hill magnifica beads at US$4 a package.  (The kit has enough to do the front, but not the back sadly. But it is a bonus chart, so I’m not disappointed.)

J A-S's Water Dragon

This is Jennifer’s Water Dragon from the Here Be Tiny Dragons class.  It is so cute!  TW did a fire dragon as a companion, but I haven’t started it yet.

J A-S's Summer Keep

And this is part of the outer border of Jennifer’s Summer Keep design.  TW’s was the same keep in winter, which I haven’t started.  Both are lovely, and I’m stitching them on the same piece of fabric.

I also took Jennifer’s 3D Castle Ornament, and you can see a finished picture of it on her blog at the bottom of this post.

I will post some more tomorrow about my experiences at the festival.  Overall, though, I had a really great time.

Giveaways

Don’t forget Missy Ann’s 13 Days of Halloween giveaway!  Check out her blog for more information.

And another giveaway: Pumpkin Patch Primitives Quilt Shoppe is giving away a fabulous bundle of Halloween fabric. Stop by to check it out.