Twist Festival 2018

The Twist Festival was held this weekend. For the first time they decided to hold it over three days instead of just two, starting on Friday at noon. Since I had work, I joined Patricia to help out with her boutique Atelier de Penelope after work. Hurrah for half-day Fridays!

When I showed up the boutique was already set up. I think I prefer this year's setup over last years. We had more wall-space to hang things up.

The festival is really fun as I get the chance to meet stitchers and fiber artists. This year their was a great influx of young fiber artists as well as young stitchers-to-be. I had a great dinner with Annelise of Mamie Lisette, Natalie Dupuis of Sew By Hand Montreal and Patricia, just talking about embroidery and it's future. Annelise spoke about bringing back embroidery in the classroom. Wouldn't that be great?

Remember this piece that I saw at the Dentelles et Broderies en Lumière exposition? I got the chance to meet the lady who stitched it.

A stitcher came to our booth carrying this lovely tote bag from Mexico that was stitched using a luneville hook. The technique is called gancho which translates to hook in English. The colors just popped against that black. Check the link here for more pictures.

I also had the pleasure of meeting Monika of The Olive Sparrow. We had met her at her booth and she mentioned needing needles to embroidery her doll's eyes. She came to visit our booth with her two girls Nissy and Tamina.

Patricia and I got the chance to hold them. I got Tamina, she's so soft and cuddly. The dolls are made of 100% cotton and wool and she dresses them using recycled materials like wool sweaters and antique lace.

I was very good this year and didn't spend a lot of money. I resisted buying wool even thought there were so many pretty colors. I bough 100% wool felt from Monika's booth. These will be great for goldwork. I also snagged some pins by Twill and Print, they were just too pretty to pass up. I plan on turning these into needle minders.

Just because I was away all weekend didn't mean I didn't get any stitching done. In between customers I took out the sashiko panel I had bought back in June. I like doing this as it helps customers who want to try out this technique, to see it in action. It also pricks the curiosity of the ones who don't stitch and they usually come into the booth to ask questions.

Last night I wasn't up to stitching anything too complex so I continued working on it. It's a very relaxing technique. I finished all the outline that will be in white. I'm still trying to decide how I will stitch the inside but there will definitely be color.

Courtepointe Québec

Over the weekend, there was a show called the Courtepointe Québec. It's a quilt show and not exactly something I'm interested it, but Patricia asked me to help man the booth for her boutique L'Atelier de Pénélope. I was there Saturday and Sunday, so no progress was made on my bigger projects. I did bring my Sashiko piece with me and I would work on that between customers (more on that later).

The show had many quilts on display and there were many awards given out. I recognized some designs and even fabric from Instagramers that I follow. For example the quilt below, it was very popular last year.

There were also a few pieces that just attracted me because of texture, colors and shapes.

I loved the fabric in this piece. The shop, Meerkat Shweshwe, that sells the fabric had a booth at the show.

This piece is really beautiful, it's done using free-motion quilting and Trapunto, which is Italian for "to quilt". Here's a video showing the technique. It looks very time consuming and the quilt is huge.

This piece had cross stitch on it.

Here's another piece stitched using Meerkat Shweshwe fabric. The quilter who made this had already made one before, so this is her second.

This was impressive, getting the gradation right.

Lovely Geisha.


Even prettier peacock.

Here are my favorite quilts from the show.

The quilter who made this hand dyed all her fabrics to get the colors just right. She even hand embroidered the details. I can't remember but she might have also hand quilted it. It's an amazing piece and reminds me of a fairy garden.

And look! There are little fairies.


... flowers and tiny insects.

The last two quilts were done by the same person. They reminded me of Martina Weber's (Chatelaine) mandala designs, bling and all.

The quilter used Swarovski crystals and beads.

Not as much bling went into this one but the amount of detail in it is amazing. There is even what looks like lacework. Wish I knew how she did that.

I did make some purchases while there, who wouldn't be tempted by all the beautiful fabrics on hand. But I was very good and only bought a few fat quarters. These are all from Meerkat Shweshwe and the fabrics come from South Africa. I loved their indigo fabrics, especially the Japanese inspired ones with the geometric patterns. I had a really hard time picking out of them though, so I decided on these floral and mandala styles. The long panel on the right is actually meant to be used to make a Makoti skirt, traditionally worn by newly married Xhosa women and married Sotho women. I bought these for beading and it will be a nice challenge to see what I can do with them.

I always make a list of things I need from L'Atelier de Pénélope. I wanted to get Tulip needles, as the boutique is now stocking a range of them. I got a pack of chenille and milliners as we as long beading needles. I really wanted the short beading needles but these will do until I can get the short ones. The ribbon is for my slate frames. I need to remove Japanese Landscape from it so I can start prepping for my seminar class. It starts mid July so I need to hop to it.

While I was helping with the shop on the first day, I finished my Sashiko panel (last seen here). The piece needs to be ironed and washed so I'll share pictures of it soon. In the meantime, I needed something else to work on for the next day and so picked another piece. This one has a bit more details than the last one and I will most likely add colors other than just the white. I already picked out the first color, pink for the cherry blossoms in the design.

This show kicked off the travelling season for the boutique. I will also be helping out at the Twist Fiber Festival in August and the CGNA Needle Arts Fair in September. Drop me a comment if you will be there so I can look out for you :)

Back to my Regular Schedule

I'm back from my Thanksgiving trip. I had taken Bramble and the Rose as well as my Sashiko panel in case I had some time to stitch. I didn't take out my cross stitch WIP even once, but the Sashiko panel got a lot of stitching time. It was great because I could pick it up whenever I had 5 minutes to stitch and I never had to consult a pattern. I have a few leaves left and some French knots to do. After I will have to start thinking of what I want to do with the finished piece.

Except for my Japanese Embroidery class at the end of the month (2 weeks to go!!!), I have no more commitments until Christmas. This means I can get back to working on my WIPs. Tuesday I felt like beading, so out came my phase 1 Japanese Bead Embroidery piece.

I just opened the second packet of silver beads and I'm no where near the halfway point. This means I will probably have to order another packet from the JEC. My friend Carolyn also ran out and she had bought two of them same as me when we were in Atlanta. I should have ordered another when she mentioned it to me. Oh well!

Yesterday, I took out my goldwork flower and started working on the filaments. I will talk more about this in a later post once I finish this section.

For now, here's a close up pick with no light. I love the effect of the two metal threads together. Tonight, I will plunge all the threads on the left so I'm more comfortable to work on the right side.

All that's missing now is for some stitching to be done on Hedebo Enchantment, but I probably won't until this weekend (maybe). I'm having too much fun with the goldwork right now.