Nova Scotia Fibre Arts Festival 2014

Hopefully by now every one is busily making plans to come to Amherst, Nova Scotia in October.  Once again our town is hosting a festival to celebrate the fibre arts and you're all invited to join in the fun.  The Nova Scotia Fibre Arts Festival encompasses all aspects of fibre arts (knitting, hooking, crochet, etc.) but since readers of this blog are primarily quilters, the focus is just on quilting here.

There are workshops being offered on a wide range of topics and techniques, presented by well known quilters: (please click on the links to visit individual websites):
Tiny Treasures -Miniature Quilt ( Linda Hubbard), Crazy Quilting (Vera McInnis), Ricky`s Harmonic Convergence (Mary Farrow Sinclair), Quilted Art Fabric Design (Jan Boiduk), Thread Vessels(Deb Plestid), and 3 Bums on a Beach (Deb Plestid). Kathy Tidswell will be with us again to teach two workshops:  Designing Wearable Art and Creating With Thread.  In addition to the workshops, there are also shows by the local guilds - Quilt Expressions and The Cumberland Quilter's Guild- and a two day exhibit of the work of  The Maritime Modern Quilt Guild. Award winning quilter Karen Henry will visit to present a trunk show of her amazing quilts.You won't want to miss The Zonta B A Z A A R on Friday - a dazzling shopping extravaganza and café where you can purchase some of the amazing materials and fibre art you've been admiring all week-it's always awesome!

Dayle's Department Store is hosting their very popular quilt block contest and will have demos and displays every day in their Dry Goods section. New this year will be a couple of fibre-themed luncheons and teas at various spots in the downtown- one celebrating Amherst's 125 birthday with an apron display- and a fun Crazy Quilt Tea at the YMCA where the décor will be (did you guess?) crazy quilts! The popular Fibre Arts Walking Tour takes you on a jaunt around our historic downtown to see artists' work showcased in windows and storefronts. In another post I will tell you some of the prizes available to participants this year; you will be blown away by what you can win.

For the first time in 7 years since the festival began, I will not be offering a workshop. I thank each of you who has written to enquire - it was truly heartwarming to hear from you.  I decided to do something different and instead will hang a week long solo exhibit of New York Beauty quilts. I will be in attendance each day at the show. I'll tell you more about that in a later post, but briefly stated it will be at Mrs. Pugsley's Emporium (just 3 doors down from Festival Headquarters).  It's free to attend, and you don't need tickets or anything to come - just drop in and have a look around.

A similar and equally impressive list of events is also scheduled for other fibre art disciplines
(i.e. knitting, crochet, rug hooking). Note that registration for the workshops has already begun, so make sure you get your name in early (registration info is available under "Workshop Descriptions" on the festival blog) The  Festival website is being updated and will be live soon; in the meantime, please visit our blog for the latest updates and further information on all the events there. You can also check us out on Twitter: www.twitter.com/nsfibrefestival  and Facebook: www.facebook.com/fibreartsfestival
Whether you are here to see it, like it, make it, wear it, buy it, sell it, or give it - you can do it all in Amherst, October 14th -18th. We'd love to have you join us!