Fiber Fest '06 (Photo-heavy)

Well I went to the Fiber Fest in Santa Monica today!

It was smaller than I expected; I've been to bead shows that were much larger at the same venue. But there was good stuff to be seen and bought, none the less. There were wonderful quilts on exhibit. I've included a few pix of them here:
This is a combination quilt, with CQ around the more traditional applique blocks.

I took a couple of close ups of the CQ embroidery; see below:



Quilting Arts Magazine had an exihibit of ATCs. They were all so varied - I can see why they are so intriguing - you can try a new technique in a small space - you're not risking much and may come out with something great! One of my favorite ATCs:


There were demos of spinning (with 2 live and fluffy alpacas) and lots of looms set up. There were women walking around wearing these long capes that were like CQ knitting. They belonged to a group that did free-form knitting and crochetting and these capes were big, colorful, sometimes fluffy, with big leaves hanging off the sides - they were wild. Here is a purse made by one of the free-form knitters. The picture just doesn't do it justice - it was fabulous!


I dyed this lace! You just paint on the dyes - I ended up buying the dyes - it is permanent on natural fabrics once it dries. She had absolutely wonderful laces.


I thought and hoped there would be more crazy quilts on display there, besides the one pictured above. That was the only one, but there were various others that were very interesting - I got a few pix of them:



I bought some very small buttons, and some glass leaves - perfect for a CQ seam. I also bought some "wire lace" - which is very fine wire knitted or woven into a tube. You can stretch out the sides of the tube and it will stay in that shape. You can also put a bead inside the tube, if you wanted to make a necklace, for instance. It's very strange and interesting. Thought I would experiment with it in a seam treatment. I also got some fibers meant for knitting - a very thin "braid" that is hand-dyed and is almost a very narrow rick-rack. I was very impressed with the hand-dyed rick-rack on some of the CQ blocks people have posted on flickr. So I want to try the dyes that I got for the lace on rick-rack. Now I just wonder if most rick-rick is cotton or polyester.

I was talking with some other women there who were disappointed there wasn't more CQ stuff for sale - like cigarette silks, threads, etc. I did buy some fabric-covered paper that you put in your inkjet printer so you can make your own "cigarette silks" by printing a photo or some clip art. This is something I want to try adding to a CQ block also. Well, all in all, it was a fun time - great inspiration, great sharing, new plans and dreams for CQ....