CreativFestival Decompression

I’ve been at Weight Watchers most of the day teaching 2 classes, then racing around to pick up the girls with Nick from 2 separate Halloween events- a school dance and Explorers’ party. No wonder I just wanted to sleep and hide from the world yesterday, I knew how crazy today would be! The little white snowflakes falling this morning at the bus stop didn’t help either... ACK! Winter is on its way!!

So, what did I think about Toronto?


Dwaggy loved all the soft pillows and the cozy bedspread.



I really loved the shower that could be adjusted WAY up and the cool rainmaking disk in the ceiling. I got a little confused with 3 faucets to turn and a temperature dial to boot, but no serious freezings or scaldings of Dragon to report.



Toronto is big and busy! All the car accidents, sirens, homeless people, rushing bodies that don’t make eye contact etc. made me realize that I’ve gotten very used to living in a friendly little city of just over 110,000. I kept smiling at people and chatting with people at stoplights just to see if they’d answer back. It became a bit of a game... I also find the contrast of historic buildings and ultra modern ones very fascinating, so I kept pulling out my camera to take pictures...



I must have looked like a total tourist...



But how can you not be in awe of views like this?



This is one of the reasons I want to be able to upload photos and blog about them in the immediacy of the moment instead of having to wait until I get home!


The black squirrels are SO much more aggressive that our little red ones.



See the beady eyes on this one? Ok, so it’s just the camera, but I am sure this one kept checking to see if my ankles looked tasty!

The stitchers in all of my classes were totally awesome again this year. Many of them I now consider friends more than students and they are such totally fun people to hang with. I tried some smaller projects this year to see if I could push them out of their comfort zones by making teeny, tiny treasure chests out of perforated paper which we then filled with special beads and a tiny sleeping dragon with a teddy bear that we tucked into wonderfully unique felt beds.

I taught a class in beadpoint and encouraged stitchers to make designs with beads instead of Xs. We had more than a few beads go flying and some colourful language, but great results.

This is Andrea... she beadpoints REALLY fast.



She finished her project just 45 minutes into the 1.5 hour class and impressed everyone. Others told me to award a prize for the slowest person in the class, but then I worry that everyone might go slow on purpose!

We also played Monster Mix-up and I ended up doodling a communal monster near the end. It was designed by consensus... ie. Is it going to be cute or scary (show of hands). Can you guess that CUTE won?



I also LOVED the two lectures I gave. One was a huge blast and totally fun... the other was really important information to pass on. Honest... it had nothing to do with the power to make over 120 people “bow down” their hands like a giant game of Dragon Says. I was teaching stretching exercises at the time. They were a great crowd that laughed in all the right places. Maybe next time the mike won’t cut out halfway through the lecture though. I can feel how tired my voice is tonight after talking most of the day once again!

The CreativFestival truly is a unique event that combines so many crafts and classes in one space. It brings a huge variety of crafters together for 4 days, many of whom don’t venture beyond their comfort zone, but when you can get them talking about what makes them passionate, you can tell that deep down, we’re all the same. We love to make things and have them appreciated, which a Walmart-mentality world sometimes doesn’t value.

I truly needed to get away and get re-inspired. This festival made me realize what wonderful people there are in creative fields, how important good friends are (no matter what adventures you end up on), that I still need to be deeply involved in creating things with thread and that making people feel GOOD about the time they spend crafting beautiful objects is very important to me.

But it is time to make a mug of something warm and crawl into bed. The halloween treat is already up on the website early... share the link and SPREAD THE WORD!