Knitting and Stitching Show

Today has been a fantastic day!  It started a bit too early for a Saturday but it was worth it. I was up at 5 am so that I could catch the 6:21 am train to London! (£13.50 fare rather than £40 upwards at a more convenient time of day.)  It was cold, dark, raining and miserable but I was in such a good mood I didn't care.

To get into the spirit of things I crocheted all the way to London so only another 46 little squares to go now too. The journey was good, and straight forward despite the Victoria Line being completely shut all weekend (resulting in lots of very grumpy people it seemed). The best bit was probably the short bus journey from Wood Green station up to Alexandra Palace. The queue for the free shuttle bus was immense so when a normal bus turned up many of us jumped on that one instead, ('many' being about 80 women). There was a lone man sat at the back at the time minding his own business, upon being joined by so many knitting 'crazy' women he just couldn't stand it any longer and left pretty quickly to stand near the door (still surrounded by more crazy women though). I think he was slightly concerned that he may have got ambushed into the knitting show which, it appeared, would have been a bit of a nightmare for him! His loss...he didn't realise what he was missing.

So here we are - Alexandra Palace - Knitting and Stitching show 2012...

I did feel quite a home very quickly when I found this within the entrance area...

So...maybe, instead of getting annoyed with my unfinished projects, I should just turn them into an art form as they are?! That's exactly what was inside there - lots of unfinished work with the stories that went with them. It was fascinating but I think I will stick to my original plan of actually finishing mine.

The above picture was taken about half an hour after the show opened. Within an hour you couldn't move it was that busy - I was slightly amused by those people that were irritated by the crowds...what were they expecting?!  This is the picture I took while eating a blueberry muffin for lunch (er...diet?! hmmm)...

So much wool...in so many colours...

There was some completely stunning quilts that I wasn't allowed to photograph but we were able to take picture of these ones, below. They are good but not as incredible as the others.

These quilts were about 5ft square so still reflect substantial effort.

I will tell you why this is here in a later post...

Finally, on the way out I found this. I've been to a couple of model villages in the past but nothing quite like this before...

I'm sure child #3 will be overjoyed when he gets knitted model railway stuff for Christmas!...maybe not :-( ...still tempting though!

Amazingly I was really good and stuck to the budget but that still meant that I left the show with at least 4 new projects. I am planning on making a start on the first of those right now and I'm not telling you what it is just yet either. I knew I wouldn't be able to resist a new start today but I am technically allowed 1 new project so all is still good! This one is something entirely new too...I nearly had a go at it last year but never got around to it.  Here goes then!

I'll be back soon.