An institution that might need to change

The old joke goes, marriage is an institution, and who wants to be in an institution.  Gah, hold my sides for me. It's not that I have anything against marriage, but I'm not so sure about the Knitting and Stitching Show, aka Ally Pally any more. If I hadn't been generally having a giggle with lovely Lucy, I think I might not have lasted so long - and we did manage to get around all of the halls.  We chose to take a day off work and head there on the Friday - and it was still relatively busy.  Were Saturday and Sunday mental?  I read some posts on Ravelry from vendors who said that they would be discounting on Sunday which makes me think that footfall was down. But at least we could get to stalls to browse.

After spending £12 to get in, I was a little disappointed  with the range of vendors.  Yes, there were some bargains to be had, such as grab bags of Jitterbug from Colinette and Koigu for a fiver from Get Knitted.  You know, yarn.  Stuff you use for knitting. Alongside it there was to be a preponderance of - well, complete crap, basically.  Nasty clothing.  Handbags that embodied the antithesis of 'handmade'.  I was utterly underwhelmed by the fabric offerings and didn't buy anything.

You could still find the odd gem, such as the Interior Anarchist cross stitch from Random Monkey Designs.  We'd been to an event he [Phil?] ran at 93 Feet East in Brick Lane a couple of Sundays ago, which was an afternoon of cupcakes, cross-stitch and cocktails.  Bless them, when we found the stall at Ally Pally, it was being manned by his lovely parents who had come over for the event (sidebar: I shudder to think how much it must be for a stall at AP) and they also reported that Phil had made all the cupcakes for the Sunday himself too.  Now that's talent.

Apparently they are hoping that Cross-stitch, Cupcakes and Cocktails will become a regular event on the first Sunday of the month. It was packed and such fun.  I have my eye on one of his kits that is about to be released - featuring a flight of ducks with one in a sniper's sight.  As we didn't fancy any of the other kits, we decided to ape his 'Bollocks' design and either go for mild profanities or epithets such as 'I'd rather be knitting'.  That was Lotta's contribution and she  had almost finished it in the time it took me to stitch out C-R-A (you can see where I was going with that) and Lucy went for a multicoloured BITCH.  There was a photographer there and when we got to AP, they had framed some of the coverage... can you see in the corner?

Lucy's work is famous! 

So it was worth it for that alone.  Plus Lucy got the perfect yarn for a very special project so that was a success.

In other news I'm trying to sort out stuff at work, get promoted and a payrise. Easy to type, slightly more to it IRL. The corsetry class continues apace and the next decision is whether to use steel boning or just Rigilene  - I think I'll probably try the former even though it's just a sample.  It's a sample because everyone in the class is making the same size, learning the techniques and I may as well learn to insert steel boning. The tutor alledges that it fitted women from sizes 8 to 14 last year but I can't see it adorning anything other than my dress form.  But it's fun.

I finished the Debonnaire beret in Posh Yarns cashmere which is fabulously elusive stuff. It's slouchy to the extreme but I'm actually really pleased with it. I'm also wearing the wrong side out because I like the pattern better.  Real knitters may shudder.  Don't look too closely.

Comments

[Claire]

Ooh, I was pondering doing some more cross stitch recently, and I think i've just found my motivation!

Beret looks fab too

[thimbleanna]

Hmmm, sounds like you had a rather interesting weekend. The beret looks fabulous -- I love the color. And I'm assuming that's a pic of Lucy rather than you pointing to Lucy in the corner???

[kathleen]

I know what you mean about the piles of tat at the Knitting and Stitching show - Some very creepy rag dolls which were clearly mass-produced, and things that looked like they should be on a market stall. Not good. Something SHOULD be said (I Say in all my Englishness but probably won't myself)! My sister and I went on Saturday and it definitely wasn't as busy as last year (when we went on Saturday too). I guess people don't have the money to spend on wool! On the fabric front, I DID bag myself a few gems from the button company stall - very cute apple corduroy and Alexander Henry numbers. Did you see the clothkits stall? I very nearly bought a pattern for my little girl. My sister Lisa used to be a model for clothkits in the 70s!