Alexandra Palace Knitting & Stitching Show

Yesterday, Mum and I went to the Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace in Wood Green, North London.

No photos I'm afraid! Although lots of people could be seen merrily snapping away in the Hall, am I odd in being inhibited in doing this? For one, several stalls did actively have signs saying No Photography ...... and I also felt I would need to ask permission of any other stall I might have tried to photograph. Plus, to be honest, the halls at Alexandra Palace were packed both with stalls and crowds ....... so taking photographs wasn't easy. I also preferred to spend all my time just looking.

And ..... boy oh boy ........ was there a lot to look at. So many stalls, so many beautiful fabrics, so many stunning embroidery kits! Not forgetting the displays of work by many fibre artists.

One highlight was visiting the stall run by The Golden Hinde, a company I found by chance on the Internet some time ago that produce gold work kits and also do a number of courses around the country. After a delightfully friendly demonstration of some gold work techniques from one of the owners, I suggested to my Mum that she could buy me a beginner kit for Christmas :) So Roll On Christmas :)

What else did I buy? Well ....... I never did say why I wanted to have my sewing machine repaired. You see, I have a number of cross stitch items that my Mother in Law, Rose, made and I want to turn them into bags as presents for my Sister in law and Niece. So, I bought some fabric and bags closure snaps and some iron-on interfacing. I couldn't find any fusible polyester batting (one pattern I have is for a lightly quilted bag), which I was surprised about, so that item I will have to buy via the Internet somewhere or other. I also bought some recycled felt and an array of DMC stranded cottons as I want to make a little pouch for my son to store an external hard drive he's just bought. I have found a really cute pattern for the Firefox logo that I want to embroider on the front of it. This is a bit of an 'in the know' joke between him and me! He is forever telling me that Internet Explorer sucks and that Firefox is a much better browser. So having this logo on the front will be very apt :)

What else? Um ..... a few odds and ends ...... but also a magnifier to suspend in front of me when doing close work. At long last, I think old age is catching up with me :( On several occasions when doing small cross stitch, rather than the large cross stitches on The Rug, my eyes have really felt the strain.

Mum and I had a great day. One of the really nice things about the Show is the lovely atmosphere there. Everyone is very friendly, both the stall holders and the other visitors, and everyone seems ready to share advice or just have a chat! If anyone reading this has never been but gets the chance ...... be sure to go!