I got to hang out at Creativ Festival (Fall ’13) this past Saturday! It was just as big as I had gathered it would be after going to the Spring show. Aside from some things for my stash I also met a lot people, found a new 4000 sq. ft. brick-and-mortar quilt shop near-ish to me and made some great online shop contacts! I was also super-excited to meet Lisa from Lisa in Port Hope – I met her at the last Creativ Festival and we have been following each other around blog land ever since.

For whatever reason – maybe the fact that my phone decided not to tweet or post on facebook (argh! but it’s okay I just got a new one – hooray!), or the fact that I was so excited just to be there (ok, probably more like it!) – I “only” have photos of the Warp & Weft and Friday’s Off booths. Not a bad thing, though! I will write about them later on in the week because this post is becoming crazy-long. Today you get my pretty fabric photos!

For those of you in Canada – you likely try to find modern fabrics online here because of the added time and cost to ship from the US. I started the Canadian Online Fabric Stores Pinterest Board about a year ago to help deal with the problem. Yes, I agree – the title is too long.  We could call it the COFS Pinterest board – but that sounds more like something you don’t want to catch! Back to the board – turns out there are a lot more Canadian stores than I originally thought. I was excited to be able to meet and talk to 5 of the online shop owners.

First off, Devorah from Studio Fabric Shop, who’s fabric shop has just opened recently. She was super-helpful and let me disturb her table to cut some yardage of the delicious Robert Kaufman Dill Blossom print (right side, photo above). It’s an amazing coral colour and I found a semi-matchy pink bow print at the Lens Mills booth. They will be perfect for the Sally dress my oldest requested – similar to the one I made here, except it must have elbow-length puffed sleeves! (I see another pattern alteration tutorial in your future!). I also spoke with Nicole from Log Cabin Yardage, she was already on the list, and it was nice to meet her in person.

On the same row I found Flare Fabrics. They stock batiks and some modern quilting cottons & quilting patterns. Though she tends to stock fabrics I would label as more traditional, I was excited to be introduced to Marsha Derse fabrics! I have not had a lot of experience with batiks – but fell in love with these.  I bought the Mulberry Bullseye above to make something for whichever of my daughters claims it first! The modern feel of the patterns in these mixes well with the colouring to create a warmer feel to the fabric, since a lot of modern prints can come across as very stark.

Of course, the Festival would not be complete without a walk (or three) through the Lens Mill booth – 6 or 8 rows of stacks of fabric can’t be a bad thing! I picked up the Alexander Henry “Where’s my ‘stache” there. Along with the chalkboard-esque black for some teacher gifts and the gorgeous purple/mauve/green that reminds me of an amazing exotic rug!

As for the rest of the stash – I picked up a few bundles from Friday’s Off (above) and Warp & Weft (below). I’ve got photos of them “unwrapped” to show you later in the week!

So – enough for one day!? I’m off to finish Halloween costumes for photo-shooting tonight and posting tomorrow.