The Stitch Festival - by Joyce

Today (26th March) Jane K and I spent a happy time at the Stitch Festival at the Business Design Centre at Angel, London . As the name implies it covers all things stitch related: knitting; crochet; dressmaking; quilting; and needlecrafts.

One of the first stands that caught our eye was Sewmotion specialising in English Paper Piecing and since we had recently done some at Shirley Quilters we were interested in all the colourful kits on sale. However we moved on and looked at the designs and threads at Studio Flax, a Norwegian company, and Snagasawa Japanese fabrics and Sashiko threads. Again, more tempting inspiration.

We carried on browsing and some fabric was bought for the Block a Month we are doing at Shirley Quilters. The displays of fabrics were so colourful and some were selling stunning jackets, dresses, scarves and so on. Last year I bought a Macrame kit for my daughter and it was good to see that stand back again with even more kits.

By this time we were ready to sit down and eat our lunch so we joined a few others at the Stitch Stage. After a while more people joined us and we realised something was going to happen! The Final of the Fashion Show! All seats were taken and people were standing all round. The categories were: Children; Men; Knitting/Crochet; Up/Recycling; Evening wear teens; Evening Wear. The items were worn either by the designer or a friend and it was interesting to see the different ideas and many were designed by Students studying Fashion.

Afterwards we moved onwards and upwards to the the upper floor to see yet more and have a coffee/tea. Time was running out since the show closed at 3pm on the last day so we had to decide which stands to go to for the last hour. We both enjoy stitching and embroidery as well as quilting so bought some suitable linen for possible daily stitching exploring different stitches. I decided to buy English Paper Piecing templates from Sewmotion and we had a quick look at Toft who sell books and kits for crochet animals, flowers, sea creatures and so on. Another business that has gone from strength to strength over the past few years.

We had a great time , bought a few things and got lots of ideas.