I had a lovely sunny day for a trip up to Ally Pally yesterday for the Knitting & Stitching Show. It was mainly an inspiration trip, so I was pretty well behaved on the shopping front – getting there early allowed me to walk around all of the stands freely and make a list of the items I wanted to go back to purchase, which I then whittled down a bit – otherwise I find I get carried away at the beginning and then find something later I might have preferred. Being early also meant I got to talk to the exhibitors which is always lovely and I met some really interesting artists and suppliers. I was constrained to under 3.5 hours at the show (it’s a 3 hour round trip and I had to squeeze it into the youngest’s school day), but actually that was about right and I was pretty tired when I left at 1.30pm.
I’ve not been able to get to the show for quite a few years, and really enjoyed the current layout – inspiration out front, textile galleries next, then artists and smaller sellers, with mainly bigger sellers, the sewing machine areas and the show ring/knitting area etc in the big hall. That gave the middle area with small sellers and artists a really lovely feel – you could wander, chat, and really look at their work and wares, whilst making the larger stands next door easy to shop. I particularly loved Holly Searle‘s subversive tea towels and am very much regretting not purchasing a sweary duster kit!
So, onto the shopping bit. I should say now that I promised myself I wouldn’t buy any yarn or fabric as I’m mainly beading and embroidering rather than knitting or dressmaking at the moment, so that did help the budget a lot because wow, there were some amazing fabric and yarn suppliers there! I may have bought two very small lots of fabric, but nothing big enough to end up in my overlarge dressmaking stash (and under £20 worth so that’s OK anyway).
So, a tiny bead haul from Spellbound Beads (let’s be honest, I already have enough beads). I seem to be obsessed with using lilac and lavender as highlight colours at the moment and as I’ve never really used them before I need to build up a bit of a stash there. And obviously I like to support bead shops. Those are my excuses.
A lovely pick & mix set of hand painted threads from Kates Kloths – definitely a useful future supplier.
Lovely seeing all the goldwork on the Golden Hinde stand – I’m well off for goldwork wires obviously, but I got a very useful bag of pastel leather scraps and a new beeswax block.
New to me Studio Flax has some amazing Swedish designs, plus super flax threads – I got a small selection from their own range to try and I think they’ll be really interesting to work with because of their texture and stiffness – should be great for more structural stitches and the colours were amazing. They also have wonderful collections of vintage threads which may tempt me next time.
I nearly succumbed to some Liberty needlecord from SewBox, but resisted and just grabbed a couple of teeny Tana Lawn packs – look at those DINOSAURS!!!
Wimperis Embroidery had some lovely kits, but as I was trying to be budget conscious whilst still wanting to support a fellow artist I compromised with a pre-printed embroidery cloth (I do have the thread and hoops aplenty already after all) and some teeny hoops.
Rosenberg & Son have long been show legends, and they’re now known as Stitch Fabric – these three pieces are a bamboo mix (they said rayon/bamboo but I think there is some polyester in there too – the finish is what my grandmother would have called an ‘art silk’ or artificial silk. Whilst it’s a bit shiny to wear, it’s very eye-catching, particularly the Frieda Kahlo and plan to chop it up and embellish each portrait.
Finally two sets of real treasures. I had a lovely chat with @suziesharpvintage on her amazing stand, and was sorely tempted to spend a lot – I resisted and came away with some vintage metal stampings and a Jablonex sample card but she does sell online so my resistance may not last. Some of you know I visited Jablonec in the Czech Republic last year, almost bought a vintage sample book on our visit to a vintage seller in the former Jablonex HQ pictured below. I didn’t buy it and then regretted that decision almost instantly – now at least I have a card (which is probably more sensible than a whole book), and it’s even an official Jablonex export card so maybe from the Palace anyway!?
I also went back to see Bev Caleno’s work about half a dozen times – just incredible artistry and using common themes to much of my work so it really spoke to me. Bev works with machine embroidery and mixed media, with a lot of hand painting, texture, heat manipulation and other fascinating techniques, and the results are gorgeous. Her mushroom pieces are incredible but I finally chose one of her new rock pool kits – this is going to keep me busy for a while and teach me lots of new techniques, plus new takes on techniques and materials I’ve used before, so will be very inspiring. It was lovely to have a chat with Bev and I’ll be following her work for sure.
All in all a lovely trip – on until tomorrow so if you fancy a lovely day out why not pop up there? Might not be as sunny as it was yesterday though – just look at that view!!
The Indecisive Beader 
What a fantastic day this must have been. Thank you for telling us about it, I enjoyed reading this!