Knitting and Stitching Show... giveaway!

Hi everyone - I have some very exciting news for you very lucky UK readers! We are doing a giveaway of free tickets to The Knitting and Stitching Show  Oct. 8 - 12 in London!



Just looking over the schedule - there is so much to see and do there, and literally hundreds of hands-on workshops where you can learn new crafting skills!

We were given a pass so that our very own Jo, can attend as well - maybe you'll run into her when you're there! By the way, all of these wonderful photos were provided by The Knitting and Stitching Show.



More details on the show:
The Knitting and Stitching Show takes place at Alexandra Palace.

Wednesday 8 Oct – 10am – 5.30pm
Thursday 9 Oct – 10am – 7pm
Friday 10 and Saturday 11 Oct - 10am – 5.30pm
Sunday 12 Oct – 10am – 5pm

Tickets prices – Adult: £16 on the door (£13.00 in advance); Children £7 on the door (£6 in advance)
Visit www.theknittingandstitchingshow.com/london for more details.




And now for the good stuff - the Knitting and Stitching show is giving away of 5 free pairs of tickets for all day Wednesday, Thursday 3-7pm and all day Sunday!

To enter this giveaway - email mail@twistedthread, put K&S Ticket Giveaway on Feeling Stitchy in the subject line and include your full name, email address and full postal address. The giveaway will be open through Monday, 9/29/14.

Thank you to the wonderful people at The Knitting and Stitching Show for making this giveaway possible!

Whether you are in the neighborhood of London or not, just for kicks - what do you think you'd attend at The Knitting and Stitching Show? I'd hit a basic sewing class and camp out in the tea rooms!

The Stitch and Craft Show

Last weekend me and fellow Feeling Stitchy blogger Carina went to investigate The Stitch and Craft Show at London's Olympia. The Stitch and Craft show covered three floors, with stitching (mainly cross stitch) on the ground floor, knitting in the basement and paper-crafting on the top floor. There was a wide selection of workshops and talks as well. Me and Carina arrived there early(ish) to catch a workshop from Emily Peacock, who is famous for her Hug and Kiss needlepoint kits, as well as a beautiful selection of other designs. It was fantastic hearing Emily talk about how she chooses colour and what it's like to run such a successful craft business. We got to have a go at stitching up a simple design of a key, thinking about how the colours we chose went together.

The lovely Emily Peacock - photo by Carina

We then later went to see another talk by Emily on how to do a selection of canvas stitches.

We then got to explore the rest of the show and we both came away with mixed feelings about it. It was fantastic seeing Emily Peacock and we also got to see Mr. X Stitch's brilliant display of contemporary embroidery, where we got to stay and stitch a while (and eat chocolate biscuits).

Mr. X Stitch and some of the wonderful work on display - photo by Carina

The opportunity to get to stitch with both Emily Peacock and Mr. X Stitch was fantastic, there's a really nice communal feel to being able to sit down, have a stitch and have a natter. There were also opportunities to stitch at tables run by The Cross Stitcher magazine. However the rest of the show was a little disappointing, the embroidery tended to be on the more traditional side, so we may not have really been the people the show was intended for. The show was certainly busy and there were lots of other people who seemed to love the stalls on offer. I can't really comment on the knitting and paper-crafting floors (although we did go and have a look) but it would have been nice to have had a bit more space in the stitching demo area like the knitters and the paper-crafters had in their demo areas.

In summary, if you are a hard core contemporary stitcher, The Stitch and Craft Show, which is an annual event may not be for you, however the organisers have provided some examples of contemporary stitching (for example Mr. X Stitch) and I am forever the optimist and only hope that as time progresses, contemporary stitching will feature more and more in the show, so you'll probably see me there visiting next year!