Knitting & Stitching Show 2006

I went to the Kintting & Stitching Show in Harrogate yesterday. It was great as ever! I wanted to do a couple of the Learning Curve practical projects, but the two I was interested in were sold out by the time I got there. I was rather disappointed, but no matter, I had an extra £12 to spend instead! I managed to earwig the first section of the 'Crazy Patchwork Bag' session and wrote down a few notes (borrowed a book from the library on the same sort of thing on Thursday too), and I went along right at the end of the 'Japanese Embroidery' session to see what they had been doing. I was quite glad I'd missed that one as I'd hoped that it would be a small piece that I would have been able to mount in a card, but they were working the first stages of a larger piece and she collected them in afterwards, so there was nothing to take away. The bag, however, I would have liked and am keen to try CQ as soon as I can.

So, here's the stash I bought: 2 Pearsalls' silk embroidery kits, one flatwork 'Bluetit Family' and one 'Stumpwork Poppy'. The model for the latter was incredibly beautiful, but the photo on the front of the kit is dismal! They'd never have sold a thing without the model and really need to re-do the kit picture. You can get them better than this because I've seen them on raised embroidery sites and newsgroups, (might send them mine as a suggested replacement once I've worked it!!). There were 2 lots of the threads missing from my kit, so I e-mailed at once to get them sent to me. Will report back as to how well they do on this score. I also got a Brazillian embroidery kit from Ed-Mar, which looks lucious! I have 2 courting couples in my circle of friends right now and I'm sure at least one, if not both, of them will marry and this kit will make a delightful ring cushion that's sure to do for one of them. More to one girl's taste than the other though and she loves things South American, whereas the other has quite simple tastes. As well as the kits, I got one skein of Anchor Coton à Broder, one freebie skein of Pearsalls' silk and 4 packs of Mill Hill beads.

I spoke to Tracey Franklin at her stand about the dog portrait. She stitched the model in the RSN's book and so I wanted to know if she found it challenging at all and she said some of it was rather hard, esp. as the stitches went in all different directions. So, I felt better for finding it hard if she had! She also kindly said that I must be quite good to attempt that, but I didn't like to say that it was the first piece of silk shading I'd ever done! I've done that lily since and the tiny strawberry flowers on 2 other things have used the same principles, but the dog is the ultimate and the first piece I tried. Talk about jumping in at the deep end! Well, I'll have to learn to take smalled steps in future. I did with other types of stitching, so why I'd to be so hard on myself with this one, I can't imagine! Twit!

Speaking of twits, whilst I was at Miss Franklin's stand, the funniest little man was there too! He was trialling some stitches on her hoop etc and, as I got there, was just enthusing about her giving him the whole piece of fabric, (probably trying to get rid of him). Shortly afterwards, it was clear how he was trying all ends up to impress us both and was saying that I ought to encourage my hubby to start stitching as it goes down well with the ladies and so on!! Well, a happily married man would hardly expect to be told how to go about getting into other ladies' good graces, how to chat them up in nightclubs, and that by his own wife!!!! It was clear this chap was on the pull and fancied his chances of meeting a nice stitching lady he could charm as he was there in his suit and tie, but he was late middle-aged, hadn't much hair and even told us that he spoke Icelandic to try and get some admiring response! I couldn't resist telling him I spoke Mandarin Chinese, to which he started to say something I thought must be in Icelandic because I hadn't a clue what he was saying at all. When he repeated it and looked almost accusingly at me, I realised that he was attempting to say 'how are you?' in Mandarin, but honestly, the pronunciation was so poor (and even one of the words totally wrong) that I thought he was showing off his Nordic skills! I said that I was sure poor Miss Franklin had had enough by then and took my leave, but I bet he was at least thinking I couldn't really speak Mandarin as I couldn't make out his rotten attempt!! What a character! I shall turn and run off if I see him there next year!!!!!!