Creative Festival - Maggie Vanderweit Workshop

Today I was at the Creative Festival for a workshop with Maggie Vanderweit called Painting with Threads. Below is my one and only piece that I was able to make in a 6 hour workshop. I really like the way it turned out. This particular piece is using a dissolvable stabilizer. I used Solvy, placing a layer of decorative yarns, ribbon, organza, etc. between sheets of the stabilizer and then hooping it and then free motion stitching it. I used a Sulky holographic thread in copper on the outer edge followed by various rayon threads and then finished it with the copper thread in the middle. Once you are done stitching the piece, you wash out the stabilizer and this is the finished result. I'm not sure what the next step will be for this piece, but I really like the end result.

Now you may wonder, did this really take me 6 hours to make. No, this piece took just over 2 hours to do. So what happened with the rest of the time. Maggie did a bit of talking and some demos throughout the 6 hours but unfortunately over half the class was having technically issues with the sewing machines that were provided by Pfaff including me. I wasted over 2 hours trying to sort through some nasty tension issues and this was with a brand new computerized machine. And if the machine wasn't having tension problems then it was breaking needles and thread at an alarming rate. There was a lot of frustration in the room, and several folks left a couple of hours before the end of the class.

This was my first time ever taking a class at the Creative Festival, and one of the selling features was not having to lug your sewing machine along with all your other supplies. Well this proved to be anything but a plus. I still have the Kaffe Fassett Workshop on Saturday but I have a funny feeling that this will be the first and last time that I will be taking anything at the Creative Festival. I will give you my final take on the festival after Saturday's workshop.