Stockholm Sewing Festival

This weekend my aunt, my mom and I visited the Stockholm Sewing Festival at Stockholm International Fairs. I love the Sewing Festival! It's the largest Swedish fair for sewing, quilting, knitting, embroidery and a host of other, fabric related crafts. Always really inspirational to visit.

It's been a couple of years since I last went, and to be honest I think that's a good thing - a lot of the sellers return every year so you start to recognize things from previous years. But after waiting a couple of years I found lots of new inspiration!

One of the biggest thrills for me this year was visiting an entire stall devoted to English paper piecing - I rarely see a lot of EPP in Sweden but apparently it's on the rise! If you're in Sweden and feel like buying some EPP supplies without splurging on overseas shipping, have a look at QuiltPassion! I couldn't resist buying some hand quilting thread, it will come in very handy once I start sewing my hexie quilt together. I also got some clamshell templates - not sure what they will become yet, but I'm thinking maybe a pillow using some of the Liberty fabric I got in London?

 Of course I had to get some fabric, too, but I tried to resist impulse buying. The yellow, orange and red in the photo above is going straight into a project, so I figure it almost doesn't count... Oh well. I did manage NOT to buy this amazing wool embroidery kit from Swedish embroidery artist Karin Holmberg. I love the look of wool embroidery and I would really like to give it a go, but I just don't think I'm ready to take on a huge project like this. I'm hoping to take a class on wool embroidery someday, there's so much to learn!

I spent a lot of time ooh:ing and aah:ing over all the traditional swedish wool embroidery at the fair though. All those vibrant colors - yum!

In other news, I have had my hands full with starting a new job, mom visiting and Keith contracting a really nasty virus which completely knocked him out - meaning our Valentine's Day was spent on the couch watching TV. I did get him some flowers and chocolate though, so not a total loss! I hope to get back to blogging regularly soon, I just need to find a way to organize myself and get settled with the new job. Hope you all have a great week!