What i did at CREATE... or how Cheryl got her groove back.

As you may know, this summer has been extremely busy and while I am happy to have made my sister's wedding flowers, after the initial design they were a bit monotonous to make.  I felt pretty uninspired, and because my work schedule freed up, I spent Friday 8/27 at CREATE in Rosemont.
Now, I don't have pictures of the event because I was silly and didn't bring my camera, but you can see some other great recaps and pictures here, here, here and here.
Of course, I saw all of my friends there, and that alone was incredible.  The hardest working staff I've ever run across, Pokey Bolton and Lindsay Murray were there, and Pokey says I'm going to love Houston, which is getting me super jazzed up to go.  And that's just 10 minutes into the event!
My class was thread painted art quilts with Elin Waterston.  Elin is an incredible artist and it was so wonderful to learn from a teacher like her.  Patient, kind, and extremely talented.  She really demystified the process and I had a great time working on my project (which will be in another blog post for the return of Technique of the Week!) Elin is co-author of the Art Quilts at Play and the Art Quilt Workbook, some of whose techniques I have tried this year.
I got to have dinner with some new and old friends, including Belinda Spiwak. 
CREATE also had a "store" onsite that not only showcased Bernina sewing machines, but also a wide variety of Interweave titles and other books and supplies so you can take your creative juices home and continue working.
To wrap up our evening, it was time for the Artist's Faire, and it was AMAZING. Several artists had table "booths" and you could walk and browse lots of art supplies and original art.  The art was amazing!  Beautiful stuff from Kelli Perkins, Jamie Fingal, Jane Lafazio, and many many more.  Also lots of vintage collage materials from various vendors and some amazing collage artists from the pages of Cloth Paper Scissors.  Of course, it was the place to be, and I ran into my friends Melanie Testa, Judy Coates Perez (click her link for super cool recaps of the event) and my new friends from the Chicago Modern Quilt Guild! (HI Karen! HI Sue!) 
Want to see the few things I got at Create? Commence the showing and telling!

The book and TAP (Transfer Artist Paper) are both going to be used later this year for a Technique of the Week! And of course, they had all the newest magazines, so I picked up the latest QA GIFTS.  It is such a great issue.

I loved the ephemera booths. There were lots of them, and if I were a collage artist, I'd be in heaven, but as it were, I saw a couple of things I HAD to have for my creepy victorian parlor. (You know about my year round haunted parlor, right?) So this tiny (and I mean tiny, these do not even come close to fitting around my neck) set of faux pearls and the cool eyeglasses and case only cost me $6 total! 

This is a gorgeous teapot from Altered Ever After, and is featured in an issue of a magazine this month!

These lovely brass findings were super cute on the gorgeous sample artworks by Rene, and I picked up these tiny sets for a future project. 

So, that's about it, and I have to say that I came home SUPER jazzed up to start creating again, and I wish I had allotted more than one day, but the wedding was important and that's OK.  There's going to be another one, and that's great too.  I think the folks at CPS and QA have a lot to be proud of, and I am looking forward to going again next year!