We went to the Creativ Festival on Saturday. My impression was that there were more quilt-related vendors than at the past 2 or 3 Festivals and there were definitely lots of lovely kits, charm packs and wonderful patterns.

However, I had a very definite list of things I wanted to find. First up was a couple of pairs of thread snips — one to keep by the sewing machine for those few times I do use it (and I even bought some new machine needles) and another to have in my hand stitching kit. Look what I found!

The pink and green thread snips are great. Not only do they work fabulously, I love the colours! The little scissors are just a tiny bit curved. They’re made with titanium blades and are listed as an embroidery scissor. However, they work like a charm when cutting out curved pieces of fabric! I had a few Drunkard’s Path blocks printed, ready to cut and it was as though the scissors knew, on their own, to follow the curve. They’re not great for straight cutting but with my love of curved piecing, these are a great tool for me.

Then there was YLI thread. I saw these two spools of quilting thread that I know I’ll use. I also topped up on some YLI Heirloom in pink, which seems to be the colour that works best with almost everything.

I’m saving the best for the end. Batik charm packs were on my list. While I didn’t find the standard charm packs, I did find these 7″ pieces of batiks. They’re not quite what I had in mind for the pattern I’m thinking of, but they’re going to be absolutely perfect for another pattern I have in mind. The funny thing? I got these batik squares at Sew Sisters‘ booth — Sew Sisters being my favourite quilt shop.

And the topper to the weekend? Late Friday afternoon, this arrived in the mail. The new Jane Austen Patchwork Mystery book by Linda Franz. It has some absolutely gorgeous photos of the Jane Austen Patchwork, wonderful instructions for making a Jane Austen Patchwork quilt and is a real joy to read.

It also has the pattern for this smaller version of a Jane Austen Patchwork.

There was a rather violent thunderstorm here late Saturday afternoon. It took us ages to get home from the Festival. The wind was a bit fierce, the rain came down in buckets, the lightning was incredible and there were some huge claps of thunder. Although we weren’t affected, there were apparently a lot of people without electricity as a result of the storm. I’m grateful neither of the kitties find storms frightening. In fact, it’s not unusual for them to be on the windowsill watching a storm.

Lester snoozing.
Half of a Smudge face. Sometimes he’s quite insistent on getting close to the camera. This sort of shot is the result.