Creativ Festival 2007 in Toronto & London

This past weekend I attended the creativ festival at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. I have always attended this show to look at new sewing machines and products. The past few years though I've noticed the increasing amount of ready made merchandise and other things that has been creeping into the show. I recall some booths selling bed sheets, ready made drapery, teeth whitening products, jam and party dips, ready made jewellery, herbal remedies for anything that ails you.

Being a creative person I find that when I pay $15 to enter this show and only about 60% of the floor space is dedicated to new products and demonstrations it's not worth it anymore. I live in downtown Toronto so I'm lucky to be surrounded by great stores that sell anything I need.

The good thing about the Toronto show are the classes. I have taken several classes over the years and they always have experienced teachers and interesting topics. This year I took a 'Sewing with Bridal Lace' course. I was lucky to find it and the timing was perfect because I was starting to make my dress this week. The teacher was from Senaca College here in Toronto and was trained as a seamstress in Europe and has been doing it for 30 years. She has made a lot of wedding dresses in her time. The course focused on making a bodice for a wedding dress using lace and making it seamless. I have been curious as to how all of the lace dresses in the magazines look flawless and don't have seams. Now I know what the secret is and I started making my bodice last night.

If you follow my blog you will know that I attended the Knitting and Stitching show (which I still have to write about) in London, England earlier this month. The show is put on by twistedthread and is a phenomenal show. Quick recap....There were 3 rooms, one for showcases, one for guilds and associations and finally the room for all of the merchandise booths.

Showcase: The room included students from local art schools, accomplished artists from all over Great Britain and Europe and large companies like Rowan which had a great booth with wonderful quilts and knitted blankets on cozy couches and Rowan books and magazines on the coffee table. The student showcase was a fantastic booth, very inspirational.

Guilds and associations: This is the usual thing except there were so many booths dedicated to associations for anything under the sun from all over Great Britain.

'Wendy' yarn I bought at the show and the scarf i made when I got back to my hotel room

Merchandise Booths: This was the second best part of the show, there were booths as far as the eye can see selling everything you need to be creative. I saw yarns, notions, fabrics that I've never seen before. There was a German company named Chaosprint that had fantastic fabrics and paper show below.
The books that were for sale were also fantastic. I saw books there that I only saw in magazines, if I had more room in my suitcase I would of bought some more.

The only thing about the show for me was the price. Coming from Canada and paying $2 for every 1 pound it could of got expensive fast.

Fabric from chaosprint

'Ollie' Fabric from John Lewis Department store

You couldn't take pictures but I had my sketch book and was writing out ideas and sketching them.

Overall the show is Toronto is on a different level then the one I attended in London and hope to get back there again.
Check it out here http://www.twistedthread.com/
jtt