A colourful day at The Stitch Festival

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.

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Rowandean Embroidery

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Rowandean Embroidery

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Quilteez

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Quilteez

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Studio Flax

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Sewmotion

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Sewmotion

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Wimperis Embroidery

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Helen Steele

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Helen Steele

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Titch Stitch

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Imogen Melissa

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.

Pinks, yellows, greens and a burst of neon

I’ve been collecting hand dyed skeins of wool for a while now, and I know in my head what I’ll do with them either when I’ve collected enough, or make time to get started on yet another project. I’ve already completed the test run - remember the crocheted cardigan, where I used a multicoloured yarn against a soft grey? I adapted a pattern that was previously published in Simply Crochet magazine. I’ve seen the pattern is available to buy on Etsy - I added a knitted rib, as that’s the fit I prefer, though I don’t think I made a note of how many stitches I picked up, which was a bit foolish.

My other challenge is knowing just how much yarn it’ll take, and wanting to have enough before starting. The pattern, for my size, says 250g of the main colour, with a ball each of the six colours for the stripes. But as I won’t be using the stripes as a pattern, then I think I can probably use less, but no doubt it will be a discovery each time I attempt one.

But what I realised when I recently added to my supplies, was that I’ve been pretty good at sticking to my colour palettes, which is amazing really as they’ve all come from various places and at varying times, and apart from the neon burst, haven’t been purchased with the plan of putting them together. Some have come from lucky dip bags, some from a kickstarter campaign to dye a 100 skeins. I’ve signed up for this again this year, and while I can share what I like and loathe the actual skein I receive will be very much up to the dyer, though I know that my skein will be unique. I’m hoping that will arrive either this or next month, so it’ll be good to see just how well it fits. Or if I’ll be tempted to start another colour palette…

Pinks and yellows

The newest addition to my collection is the lighter skein on the left below which I bought from Instagram from someone selling their stash, I thought it would go with some I already had and it does. It’s also the skein the inspired this post as I thought while I was checking the colours I might as well remind myself of what else I have! All apart from the skein on the right, which is from The Wool Kitchen, came in a lucky dip clear out bag, but I can’t remember where from. I quite like the mix of yellow and pink, though it’s perhaps not a natural combination. I also think the dark purple could also work as an accent, though I’m not sure exactly just how - it needs more thought!

Vibrant pinks and orange

Pink and orange is another colour combination that isn’t naturally put together by many - but it’s one I love. And it’s the colours I’ve had dyed into the under layers of my graduated bob for a good few years (and yes, I really should update my profile picture!). Two of the skeins below are from Vicki Brown Designs, the first a special edition which is a orange with added glitter. The second is one of the 100 Skeins that I mentioned previously. The final more mustard coloured skein is from Botanical Yarn, and I think these three could work well together eventually. This selection needs more to make a cardigan viable, and I’m not sure what that is right now, but I’m sure the right skein (or two) will come along in time.

All the greens

The majority of these skeins are from Lay Family Yarn, only the ‘kermit’ green (my affectionate name for it) skein on the right coming from Vicki Brown Designs, another from an earlier 100 Skeins project. The mini skeins came as a set, and once again it was love at first sight. I think this colour palette is likely to be the one that most follows the striped style of the original pattern, using the vibrant green as the stripe on the lower half, and the more ‘oatmeal’ skein (on the left) on the top half.

And a burst of neon

But the real jewel are these French Navy skeins, each with a burst of neon. My original plan was to find a blue that matched to supplement these as these ones were rather pricey, or buying them all in one go was rather pricey. When they arrived I knew that that wasn’t going to be so easy, as the blue is quite distinctive, so a Plan B was needed. A while later (quite a while in fact) I relented and knew that the only thing I’d be truly happy with was to buy another skein. And so, two skeins were added - two to be sure I had enough. They are slightly different, and as is always the case if you want things to match exactly then you need to buy them together, but I’m ok with that. I do like a pop of colour, and these definitely bring that!

I think this final set, could be the one that actually gets started next, but as you can tell just admiring them also brings pleasure.

Thanks to all the independent yarn dyers out there - you’re making my life more beautiful, more colourful and also causing me one or two headaches along the way. I’ll forgive you though!

Watercolour heart doodles

We have a fairly relaxed take on Valentines here, and though we mark the occasion each year, usually with a card and a small gift, it’s not just about the one day. This year was more relaxed than normal and we ate a lovely home cooked meal. I’d been contemplating the style of card I’d make this year, but right up until the day before I didn’t know exactly what form it would take.

I’d seen, and thought I’d saved but hadn’t as it turned out, an idea on Instagram using heart shaped cookie cutters to stamp an outline using watercolours and then using water to flood the shape. That appealed, and so I dug out an appropriately sized cookie cutter and my watercolours, and started to look for the reel I thought I’d saved.

I couldn’t find it, but thought the idea was simple enough, and started thinking what’s the worst that could happen. It didn’t work exactly as my memory thought it should, but you know what, that didn’t matter and so I spent the afternoon doodling some watercolour hearts, with no plan other than to use them somehow on a card for MOH.

The plan was to mix some watercolours, dunk in the cookie cutter and stamp that onto the paper. My plastic heart didn’t really pick up the paint that way, and so I soon adapted my approach to paint the colours directly onto the edge. This left a pretty melee of colours on the white plastic, which almost looks as if it belongs to someone who knows what they’re doing!

And don’t worry, this cookie cutter has been retired from the kitchen and is now labelled a permanent addition to my craft kit!

With my new approach working pretty well there was no stopping me, and hearts of many colours quickly decorated my page. I even managed to wait for it to dry before adding colour for depth and interest. I soon realised that I much preferred the bolder colours once more layers were added, but also realised I probably should have started with a background rather than diving straight in with the hearts.

I didn’t want to risk adding a watercolour background and disturbing what was already there, the bleeding heart look wasn’t quite what I was going for. So instead I used some more pastel-shaded pencils to doodle in a background, and deeper complementary colours to add further depth to the hearts. Then I finally worked out how I would use this and out came my die cutter.

As experiments go, it was quite an enjoyable afternoon and productive too as MOH was once again the recipient of a truly unique card made with love.