I’d seen the adverts for The Stitch Festival on Instagram and my interest was piqued, and then piqued again when I saw it was being held at the Business Design Centre in Islington, which is not only easy to get to but, I think, a great venue. I’d been there in February for the Garden Media Press Event.
It’s been a few years since I went along to the Knitting & Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace, which was also good - but huge and busy, even with the numbers attending reduced due to Covid. I’d done a workshop that day to create and decorate a rustic barn using material and decorative stitches on the sewing machine, and so was keen to look at the workshop programme for this event.
In the end after much deliberation I opted for two workshops, one with an early morning (9am) start and the other at lunchtime. The early morning workshop also gained me entry into the show, so less queuing and that seemed like a good trade off for the earlier start. Though as it approached I was less sure of its merits, but mainly because I’m not naturally a morning person and these winter months have seen a slower start to the day. But as it turned out it was fine, as I knew it would be. I even had time to pick up breakfast along the way.
The morning workshop was to learn from Angela Daymond how to use leaves and petals to colour white paper, creating a notebook ready to be ‘cooked’ at home. Once my notebook was stitched, and a sliver of silk added, I carefully placed dried onion skins and dried tulip petals between the paper and wrapped it around a wooden dowel, securing it with crochet thread.
My notebook is still waiting to be cooked, as I need to either find a saucepan just for crafts, or alternatively a jar that I can use in one of our existing saucepans. I’m sure I had some taller jars that would work, but they may have been a casualty of an over zealous tidy up.
I’m curious to see how it will turn out, the examples available during the workshop looked great but as Angela impressed on us during the workshop you can’t replicate the effect so if randomness isn’t your thing, then this probably isn’t the craft for you! I’m ok with randomness…
Once the workshop finished and before the next one started I had a few hours to look around the show. I knew this had the potential to be dangerous, and expensive - but unlike the show at Ally Pally I also knew I had to carry my purchases home, which proved to be a good enough deterrent.
I also knew that I wouldn’t leave empty handed - it’s so hard to do that at these kinds of shows, but I wasn’t expecting to buy what I did - we’ll come onto that.
I loved the Indie Biz village on the balcony, full of independent crafting businesses many of whom I follow on Instagram, so it was really nice to see them in person. The main floor had the bigger and medium-sized stands, and were equally as busy, colourful and friendly.
As you know I’m a fan of colour, and I wasn’t disappointed - here’s just some of the stands and crafts that were there. If you want to see more head over to the ‘highlight’ on my Instagram or take a look at the Stitch Festival feed.
During my time in between workshops I fell in love with a dress on the SewDifferent stand, and I would have bought the made up version if that was an option. Instead I bought the pattern, found out where the material was from and well, bought another couple of patterns too. And yes, I know I’m not in the habit of making, or sewing my own clothes, but these patterns I think I could - and I like the designs so much, I think I will.
I wasn’t able to buy the material for the design I fell in love with, but I did buy some embroidered chambray to use in the third pattern I bought. The one I added when I learnt there was a show deal, that made sense to take advantage of. I’ll share more about the details of the patterns and my plans in another post, but the second pattern was for a sundress and I was hoping it would work with the material I fell in love with (and have since left in the cupboard) at the 2021 show I attended. But I have higher hopes for this latest project… Mum’s even on standby to provide expert help when I need it (as I’m sure I will).
Thankfully it was soon time for my next workshop, a beginners workshop for mixed media collage. Or basically cutting and sticking, what could go wrong? Thankfully nothing, and I spent an hour learning the basics and creating my masterpiece under the expert guidance of Jane Schofield.
My natural instinct is to fill the space, all of it - but then I realise I’ve overdone it. Here I learnt to show restraint, and the Liberty fabric I really struggled with until Jane pointed out the obvious, which was I didn’t have to keep it in the shape it was. And it was so much better for that advice.
Now this is a craft I think I’ve been collecting for my whole life! Seriously. I am that person that keeps stuff, small bits and also collects ‘things that could be useful’ too. I knew they would be useful, and this is what I’ve been waiting for. My trouble now is remembering where everything is, but I can work on that.
The other thing I learnt in this workshop was that it’s perfectly fine to use a stick of glue - I’d always felt that was somehow cheating, but glue’s glue. So once I find my stuff and re-familiarised myself with it, I’m pretty sure there’ll be no stopping me.
