L’Aiguille en fête 2013 (report)

Earlier in February I mentionned L’aiguille en fête, a sewing/knitting event. I went there on Saturday 16th with my mum (it was fun to have a mother-daughter meet-up centered around needlework) and I have to say I had a very nice time. We started with the exhibition part, which ate up a lot of our time, even though the main theme was less interesting to me this year than the previous ones. After that we had to rush a little bit to see the vendors. Next time I should try to go early in the morning. But I still made some nice discoveries, bought a few nice things (my wallet is less happy about that) and overall had a very good time. Here are a few of my favorite memories in pictures, and you can see the rest on my Flickr.

The exhibition theme was “knits”, so they had a big space devoted to wool. They showed a variety of (unprocessed) wools from different parts of Europe and some projects made of wool (a lot of which made from felted wool).

Then they had several smaller spaces devoted to creators.

We were completely charmed by the embroidery work of Ms Marie-Therese Saint-Aubin (who seems to have written embroidery pattern books that are quite popular, judging from the comments were heard). Most of them are cross stitch embroideries. Loot at how delicate her work is! Both the stitches and the created drawings… we were really impressed. And on top of that, that lady is very nice and willing to answer questions and explain her technique.

The charming Eleonore, designer of the Deer and Doe patterns (and creator of the Thread & Needles French sewing/knitting community). We talked a tiny bit about the next patterns, to come early April (we can’t tell much about it, but with the small bits I know I’m sure the next collection will be great!). I can’t wait!

Embroideries that immediatly caught my eye on the Rouge du Rhin booth. I even got one of their designs. One of the ladies who owned the booth kindly showed us how to make the embroidery stitch that you can see on the white and blue cushion on the right of the first picture. We didn’t know it and I really loved how it looks. It’s call Palestrina stitch. I also like the two-tone Boulogne stitch very much. You can see it in red and white at the top center of the second picture. Doesn’t it remind you of Tim Burton’s work? Of course both of those stitches are on the pattern I got! ;)

And now let’s talk about what I brought back. I wasn’t really reasonable, especially since this year I mainly got patterns and kits, which are more expensive. Let’s start with those. Patterns: the cushions embroidery pattern, the Sureau dress by Deer and Doe and a sashiko embroidery motif. Kits: a kit for a patchwork bag that I completely fell in love with, and a magazine + felt kit to make a cute autumn crown. I’ve been thinking about getting that last one for the past years, so this time I decided to just do it.

Then comes materials: some small cuts of japanese check fabric, sashiko embroidery thread, lace appliques and a “tiny feet” stamp that is just adorable. And at last, some charms and wood buttons. I think I went a little bit crazy on the buttons…. ^^;

Now I “just” have to find the time to use all this! At leat I didn’t bring back big fabric cuts that would pile up on what I already have. ^^; And as I said at the top of this post, you can find all the pictures I took on the devoted Flickr set, I took about a hundred of them.

L’Aiguille en fête 2013

L’Aiguille en fete is a french convention centered around needlework. The 2013 edition will start tomorrow February, 14 and last until Sunday. I’ve been there in 2010 and 2011 and really enjoyed it. I missed it last year because I was preparing the wedding and really didn’t have any spare time to go, but I intend to go this time! I even bought my ticket in advance.

As you can guess it consists mainly in seller booths. Lots of quilting and embroidery (mainly cross stitch), but also a good number of knitting/crochet and some general sewing (notions, fabric, kits, patterns…). This time they changed their location to a bigger venue, so I guess there will  be more sellers and maybe a little more variety. Still, even if I don’t quilt (yet) or knit, and if cross stitch isn’t my favourite kind of embroidery, I found the event to be quite inspiring. Plus it’s nice to be surrounded by lots of people who also like needlework (in 2011 I didn’t have that many people around me to share that love with). Each year they pick a theme and organize some exhibitions centered around it. The years I went the themes were “theater costumes” and then “lace”, and I found the exhibition quite interesting. I think it’s nice they not only have seller booths but also an exhibition part. The theme is year is “knits”.

If you’re in the neighborhood, you might want to take a look!

L’aiguille en fête

Hello! I’m writing today with some good personnal news and lots of pretty things to share. First, I’m happy to announce that our Internet connection works perfectly! o/ And my little sewing corner in the appartment is close from being done. I still need a few things to tidy things up and above all, I need a new iron. I don’t know about you but even if I don’t iron all my clothes all the time in “real life”, I can’t sew without an iron nearby! I can’t wait to have one and start sewing again. ^^

So I you can guess the pretty things I’m about to share are not things I made myself (although I do have some simple crochet to show you later, finally managed to get a few pictures last week). I was able to spend some time at the sewing event I told about last time. Not as much as I would have wanted (couldn’t see much of the booths), but enough to want to get better organized next year, and to snap a good number of lace pictures from their exhibition. Here is a selection.

You can find the rest of the picture in their Flickr set (along with some bigger size versions). I’ll add other pics as soon as I find the time to resize and upload them, so check back regularly!

Event

imageIt’s that time of the year again! Yestarday started this year’s edition of the crafting event “L’aiguille en fête” at La Vilette in Paris. It’s an event centered around what we call in french “the needle arts” (sewing, embroidery, quilting, knitting…), with a majority of booths about quilting or embroidery. They also organize exhibitions and tutorials. This year’s theme is lace. It’s going on until this Sunday 5pm.On a more personal note our moving at the end of january went ok and we’re now in our new lovely appartment! The last room still needing unpacking and organization is, of course, the work/sewing room. ^^; No sewing for me at the moment. And we still don’t have an Internet connection, although we’re supposed to. Hence the lack of posts here. I’m trying to post this through an application on my phone, I hope it will work. We called the company in charge this morning, they will try to find out what’s happening and hopefully we should have access to the Internet within two weeks (fingers crossed!).