Knitting and Stitching Show - London Olympia - March 2015

At the beginning of March, we had a girlie trip to London - courtesy of Dad.  He had spotted in the local paper a coach trip to the Knitting and Stitching Show and asked if we'd like to go?  Would we?!!   So Mum, Amanda, Shannon and I had a lovely (long!) day getting our wool and fabric fix.   The coach left Norwich at seven thirty in the morning and we got home - exhausted and skint - about ten o'clock at night.   (I'm sure the organisers were expecting a lot of worn out ladies as they even had therapists on hand to give massage.)

There were very many exhibitors - with wares ranging from wool, fabric, threads, buttons, sewing patterns, books, right the way through to handy gadgets to make our hobbies easier.  There were also a number of workshops going on, including dressmaking classes.  And there was also a crochet jungle where people could learn a bit of hooky!

Shannon quite early on acquired a book and some wool so spent quite a bit of time sitting, doing some crochet and looking after our bags while Mum, Amanda and I could wander around unencumbered by purchases.  The stall where Shannon got her book was run by Toft and we were in hysterics at the selection of animal patterns and the way they were displayed.

(Shannon has since made a number of animals, using random wool and they are really effective.  Apparently the bodies are the same for all the animals, and it's only the limbs, heads, distinguishing features, etc, which are different.  Shannon has confided to me that she hopes to have a ready-made bag full of body parts to use, which really made me chuckle!)

I honestly thought I would probably be more interested in the fabric stalls, but did buy an awful lot of wool, which surprised me.  Enough to make four cardigans!  I was really inspired though at some of the dressmaking and patchwork that I'd seen.

So, those are the photos of the show itself and some of the stands.   Now for the photos of my purchases ...

I bought wool, fabric, buttons, a sewing pattern, a cutting mat and a pizza cutter.   (It's actually called a rotary cutter!)  I have been so inspired by Matt on the Great British Sewing Bee who uses a mat and cutter. In my dressmaking classes last year, the tables were at such a height that I didn't need to bend down to pin or cut fabric.   However, my dining table is quite a lot lower than those tables, so I find that pinning pattern to fabric and then cutting fabric is very uncomfortable and hard on my back.   Matt of the Bee laid his fabric on the table, laid his pattern on the top weighed down by pebbles and stones, and then used his pizza cutter to cut round.  So the whole process was done in one stage only, rather than the backbreaking two stages I currently employ.   I haven't tried it yet, but fingers crossed it is less painful than the current performance!

I bought some pretty fine wool with a bit of bling in it to make the cardigan just seen underneath the pile of wool.

I bought this lovely fox fabric to make another blouse and I wasn't really sure what I was going to make with this butterfly fabric - but that decision has been taken out of my hands now as I've given it to Amanda for bag linings!

Shannon saw this blue fabric and requested a dress for her birthday.  And then the bounder running the stall showed it to me in green and pink, which ensured I'd have to buy some for me too!  

Probably not the same dress though!

Gadgets and buttons.

So, a fab day was had by all and we've already all expressed an interest in going next year too!

Tada! "Bonnie Blooming Heather" Wave Blanket

Every time I start a new wave blanket, I like it better than the last and it becomes my favourite.

A lot of the colours in this one are the same as those in the Seaside Wave and the Sunday Teatime Wave.

This was also knitted so that the stripes are horizontal.   Instead of the normal 456 stitches and stripes of four rows, I cast on 294 stitches for this one and knitted eight rows to each stripe.   It's not quite as big as a double bed widthwise, so I'm wondering whether I should cast on extra stitches?

I really need to address this width issue.  Personally, I think it's ok, although a couple of pattern repeats wouldn't hurt, I suppose?   When you've got that many stitches on the needles, a few more wouldn't make much difference!

And the name?  Well, the colours reminded me of walking across the Yorkshire moors, or striding through the Scottish Highlands.   The colours of heather, moss, lichens, bright blue skies, bracken.  Beautiful!

Folksy Sale #9

I love this scarf - these are the same colours I used for baby Molly's blanket, but instead of stripes with four rows, I knitted twelve rows in one colour before moving to the next.  And, instead of working to a plan, which I usually do, I literally made it up as I went along, using my wool bag as a lucky dip.  Which means it's probably more lary than the baby blanket, but I love it nonetheless.

The deeper stripes are very effective.  And this beauty is currently being paraded around Salford around the neck of cousin Stephanie!

Tada! "Navy V Neck Aran" Jumper

Normally I try and think of something clever to name the things I've made, but this has had me stumped.   So, I've called it exactly what it is.  And the reason for that is every year I ask Andy what he wants for Christmas and every year he tells me he doesn't know.  This Christmas (and this shows how far behind I am with blog posts!) I asked Andy and he was totally specific - a navy v neck aran jumper.   Well, that's exactly what he got!

I have to admit this isn't the most favourite thing I've ever made - because the navy was so dark and the pattern wasn't all over - it was kept to the sides of the jumper - it was actually really tricky to see what I was doing.   I think, had it been in a lighter colour, it would have been a joy to make as it grew really quickly and the raglan sleeves make the whole thing really neat when sewn up.

The pattern can be seen more easily in this photo because I used the flash when I didn't need to, just so the pattern is picked out.   It really is very very neat - I do like a raglan sleeve as they're so easy to sew together too.  I think this would look lovely made in a lilac colour, something heathery.  Or maybe even cream to look like a cricket jumper.  I'm not giving up on the pattern altogether, but I'm certainly going to give dark colours a miss!

Tower Bridge

When I go to London - not as often as I should - I tend to always go to the same places, so know exactly where to go after getting off the train at Liverpool Street, which tube lines, which tube stations. So I was really surprised at how near everything is to Whitechapel and how easy it is to wander around and see tonnes in a very short distance.

I often have 'phone calls from Andy when he's driving home in the evenings from Whitechapel to Heathrow - he's normally stuck at Greenford! But occasionally I get a stroppy call because Tower Bridge is raised and he can't get home.  It hadn't occurred to me that it was only a couple of minutes' drive from Whitechapel, and is actually the main route to get to the Fashion and Textile Museum at Bermondsey, the reason I ended up crossing the bridge on my Sunday morning jaunt.

It was a beautiful spring morning - although very cold - and it was fab to see the different styles of architecture from the bridge.