Creative Festival 2014 Day 1

My First class was with Margaret Vant Erve called A Small Sampler of Flowers. It was a very fun class. Margaret was an excellent teacher and very easy going. She's a painter specializing in landscapes, who paints her fabric first and then embroiders details onto it with thread. I don't usually enjoy embroidery classes like this because the teacher is usually so exacting. But with Margaret, nothing is a mistake, anything can be blended in and made a part of the design.

Here's what I did so far. Each flower uses a different stitch which made it fun and interesting. I got to finally try some stitches I've been seeing online and learned some new ones. The fabric by the way is to die for. It's a silk wool blend by G & S Dye a Canadian company.

The class kit comes with instructions for five flowers. Here is what it will look like at the end. It's very pretty. The flowers are very textured even fuzzy.

Margaret's Sampler

She had a copy of her book at the exhibition and I decided to buy it. It shows you how to stitch the window on the cover and some of the other flowers in her sampler. My sister took the class with me and we both enjoyed it so much we want to take another class with her. She offers both online courses and classes (list of workshops). We're going to see if we can plan something this summer. My sister and I could possibly drive down to Ottawa to see her.

My second class was with Kathryn Drummond (another Canadian designer, from Manitoba this time). She designs Blackwork, Canvaswork, Cross stitch, Hardanger, and Italian embroider (Punto Antico and Casalguidi Embroidery) under the name Gingerbread Girl. I was looking forward to this class because I've been very interested in white work embroidery. This class is about Punto Antico, an Italian form of embroidery, which involves white work embroidery and cut work. The design is called Gelati al Cioccolato and looks absolutely delicious.

First off Kathryn's kit contains everything you need to both stitch AND finish the design exactly as you see it in the image. She even showed us how to make the cord. I was able to use her equipment to make my very first cord.

Gelati al Cioccolato kit

The final result is an ornament with a nice brown background so you can see the cut work.

Final Product

I got far enough that I was able to try the cut work part of the design. I can't wait to get back to stitching it.

Two stitches that came up during the workshops has been Whipped stitch and Bullion stitch. It seems like everyone is using them in their designs. I'll post the rest of the classes in the next few days.