A Breath of Fresh Air: Knitting and Stitching Show - London Olympia

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!