Cross Stitch, Certainly Geeky

On Saturday, my friend Vicky (who blogs over on Random Nerdery) and I went to the Handmade Fair, at Hampton Court Palace – we could see it in the distance at least!

As we were queueing in, there was a performer with a ukulele and singing ‘Park Life’ by Blur – a good start to the day when you file in smiling!

The theme for the day was bunting….

Our first stop was the Mollie Mash-up with Jamie Chalmers aka Mr X-Stitch vs Lisa Comfort of Sew Over It – I hadn’t really known what was going to happen, but seeing that Mr X-Stitch was there was what sold it to me!

I really need to start taking better photos – I’m afraid all of these were taken on my iphone! (5, not even a more up to date one!)

Here we are – not the best picture (so shiny!) but definitely happy people!

This mash up was actually about turning a tote into something wearable, and both went for making aprons out of the tote bags.

I’m not going to subject you to all of the pictures, as they’re pretty ropey, but here’s a picture of the finished articles

Lisa won with her very impressive apron, but Vicky and I voted for Mr X-Stitch mostly because he made us laugh the most!

And then we were off to Sewing with Wire with Daisy May except there was a problem sourcing enough for all of us, and so we did finger knitting instead.

Before!

I’m afraid I wasn’t as excited by this as I’m sure I should have been – I can’t knit as it gives me RSI, and I’ve never been terribly interested in the idea of finger knitting.

Here’s my finger knitted bracelet

It was then that we realised that we had about 5 hours before our last class – we went with what we wanted to do, not our heads!

That meant we had ages for looking round the shops – hurrah! I had already checked out where a couple of stands were that I wanted to go and visit!

First up was Hannah Bass Tapestries – I can’t remember where I found Hannah Bass originally, but I’ve loved her tapestries for a while – they are all maps of cities!

Look at the beautiful box!

When we got there, I was very excited to find that she actually had the London Underground tapestry with her – hurrah! It’s not been available on her website yet, but there it was, in person!

Look at how wonderfully it’s been packed up!

Next up, it was time to visit Floss and Mischief where I ended up buying the Turquoise Beetle – which is apparently one of their first patterns!

I promised Vicky that I would teach her to cross stitch, if she bought a small pattern, and she offered to teach me crochet, and so we were on a mission to find me a hook and wool, and Vicky a pattern that she actually wanted to stitch!

For Vicky, we found Bobo Stitch, who had a space rocket pattern, which fits in with her little boy’s bedroom. And we found me a crochet hook and wool!

Cross stitch is a little easier to pick up than crochet, or at least I’ve found that the case! Vicky did show me how to crochet, but as she is right handed, and I’m a lefty, it did make it a little difficult when she handed me some stitches to carry on – it all felt in the wrong place, which I think it technically was, and so I started again and had a play…. and then decided that I would have to spend some time with youtube when I got home! Vicky made me a little sampler of some different stitches!

My turn to teach cross stitch! We were doing this on picnic tables, which we had to fight to find space on – there was oddly enough, nowhere set up for people to craft at, which felt very strange for such an event! We managed, but we did have an audience who came and went, and watched with varying degrees of interest. It was all part of the fun!

Vicky, learning to cross stitch

We still have over an hour and a half left, so it was time to go for a wander around the shops now that it had quietened down a little!

Crochet animals!

Crochet unicorn, just because!

We wanted to go for a drink, and found chairs in the Deco Bar, which is gloriously 1920s!

Vicky and I spent the day squabbling over whose turn it was to buy stuff, and at the Deco Bar, Vicky decided it was her turn, which was very lucky! Vicky had taken her camera with her, and had been asked a couple of times why she was taking pictures, and when she explained that it was for her blog, one of the people she bumped into ( Kat Rayment of Laydey Katabella) who suggested going to the Press Tent, and learn how to take better instagram pictures!

A nerve racking couple of minutes later, we had downed our drinks, and were heading off to the Press Tent to get our lesson!

Louise from Bloved Blog and Sarah Hannam from Sarah Hannam photography gave us lots of tips, and then we had to take our own pictures!

What luck I had been wearing my Admit One brooch from Sugar & Vice!

We practically ran out of the Press Tent to make it to our last lesson for the day – needle felting!

Turns out, needle felting involves using something that looks like a punch with 5 needles on it, stabbed multiple times into felt and a bit of wool.

A beautiful picture, taken by Vicky of our felted flowers!

Once the class was done, that was the end of the day, and time to wend our weary ways home! It was a fantastic day, and hopefully it’s the start of lots of them! I’ve been too busy with college before this, but I’ve got my eye on the Knitting and Stitching show in October!

I think I was introduced to stitching by my Gran, in birthday and Christmas presents. I still have most of the finished items languishing in a bag, because I can never be bothered to make them into the finished article, or display them. There is only 1 piece on permanent display in my house, and that’s because my Mum had it framed!

The kit came from a trip my parents and 2 sisters took to the US years ago.

It’s only been in the last five years that I’ve re-discovered stitching, and found that actually, it can be fun, and that I want to show off what I make!

I found Cross Stitcher magazine, and started making their free kits, and then went on to more ambitious projects.

This is one piece from Cross Stitcher magazine that now goes up every Christmas!

I just need to go back to the one of London, and re-do the phone box in blue!

The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery was one of the first places I discovered that I actually wanted to buy everything from! I signed up for their subscription packages that Christmas (2012, I believe!) after watching people having so much fun on facebook and instagram sewing the patterns, and then showing them off!

These were both released for people to stitch in late 2013, and yes, I am trying to fill the walls at Christmas time apparently!

I’ve liked making random bits for people, like Jen from Epbot and Cakewrecks when I sewed Princess Buttercup and Wesley from The Princess Bride, with the pattern from Wee Little Stitches on Etsy.

My works in progress would take up a much longer post, which I might do, just to shame myself into finishing something, and also as a reason to tidy up the mess that my stitching storage area is (no, really, I can’t show you a photo of that!)

But I will say that I love Felicity Hall’s Bird and Peony clutch and that I really really want to get one of Hannah Bass‘s maps – I want to do the light London one, and then each of the others, but I really feel I need to have visited first, before I can stitch them! Anyone else feel a lot of holidays coming on?

I’m looking forward to spending some more time stitching for this Autumn, especially as I’m visiting the Handmade Fair in September, and want to go to the Knitting and Stitching Show in October!

Hope this hasn’t been too boring, or that at least you enjoyed skimming the pictures!

Kirstie Allsop’s Handmade Fair

I’m a bit of a cross stitch fan