Giveaway Winnings Day Out at the Stitch & Craft Show

Isn't it funny how though we know its good to take time for ourselves that sometimes it isn't till we get that time that we really realise how much we needed it. That was the case with me, my days are full of being a mum, a wife, a daughter and of late a business woman, plus all the other things that fill my time such as; gardening and being a friend to my friends, etc. I knew deep down that I needed to take a day for myself, to come up for air so to speak but somehow I couldn't find the time to do so and so just plodded on feeling pretty OK with my 'lot'.

Then I won this giveaway of tickets to go to a Craft show (which I wanted to go to but didn't originally think I could afford the day out - ticket, train fair, etc. Plus I didn't want to have to worry about having to get a babysitter for my youngest - namely my mum/ hubby would have to take a day off of work and I don't like asking them to do that). Then I stumbled across another craft blogger giving away the tickets because she couldn't use them, so thought I would take a chance, figuring if I won then I was definitely meant to go.

Well as you know from previous postings, I won and so it was decided for me. My mum stayed home to watch the kids for me (the eldest wasn't feeling to well so she was home too). I decided to go alone, no friends no kids, winning the ticket brought home to me the need to have a day completely for myself, where I didn't have to take anyone else's needs into consideration and I was relishing the freedom of it.

The day started off grey but warmish and I caught the 09:18am train to London Victoria Station. While on the train I worked at cutting card towards the making my handmade business cards. I had a huge wad in my wallet to give to interested people while at the show but I like to use what I call empty time (such as waiting for the kids to finish their various club meetings, I always have cards in my handbags at various stages of completion, to allow this) to create more, so the hour long train ride was ideal for working on some more.

I arrived at the show at a couple minutes to 11:00am and made my way immediately to book a workshop session (sorry forgot to take a picture of my workshop ticket). I booked for one jewellery workshop class, there were lots of classes and I could have done scrap booking o or some other fabric related class but wanted to see if I could have learnt anything new from the jewellery one.
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The class was for 11:15am so I killed some time checking out a couple of the stalls in the vicinity of the workshop area. I came across a little stall called CRAFTYBITZ T & L and they had a lovely deal of grabbing 8 bags of bits for a fiver so I hemmed and ahhed over what to choose and decided upon some cool cording for necklace and bracelet making and some other bits and bobs. I am afraid I didn't take a picture of the actual stall as while I was cashing I suddenly remembered my workshop class and so grabbed my purchases and rushed off.
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So I arrived to my class a couple minutes late so I didn't hear the name of the lady who was hosting the class seen in the picture above. In the picture above right you'll see what we started off with, a mixture of beads and jewellery findings and some tools. I really like the tray and the felt idea to prevent the beads from rolling all over the place (don't know why I didn't think of that before). The tray (is shaped like a very flat bottle that has had one side removed - click on the picture to see it better) it's cool because when you are done, you just removed the black screw lid and pour your beads into their storage facility with less chances of them spilling all over the place.
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The class lasted an hour and was done at a nice relaxed pace, it was nice to be around other crafting enthusiast just enjoying the experience. At the end of the class we had each created a bracelet, mine is on the left. There was a lot of beads and findings left over which we encouraged to go away and practice with, I plan to making a matching necklace and earrings to go with my bracelet. I also got the opportunity to work with the very fine plastic coated beading wire which although I have some, I have always felt a bit lacking in confidence to use, so I'm glad I chose to take the class. You can find more crafting related tutorial videos hosted by the docrafts Creativity Club here.

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At the end of the workshop it was time for lunch so I grabbed myself a hot meal of three bean chili and rice with salad which was quite good, so that was money well spent.

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After Lunch it was time to get down to the serious task of stall crawling. The show was on three floors, with the top and the bottom floors being a combination of stalls and workshop venues, the middle ground floor was only stalls and it was where the main entrance was as well. The pictures above is an areal view of the ground floor taken from the top floor during the lunch period. Once everyone had finished eating the place soon became crowded again.
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Molten Designs Stall

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One of the first stalls that grabbed my attention and the attention of my wallet was Molten Designs which was selling and demonstrating the wonders (to me anyway) of Friendly Plastic, see here for some videos on this very cool medium.
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It is a non toxic extremely versatile medium to work with and to the left are my purchases; a pack of 6 strips and some blank pellets. The stall owner included two samples she made when she was demonstrating to me how to work with it. I can barely wait to get stuck in and try this product, the possibilities are endless.
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Now the Stitch & Craft show concentrated mainly on fibre and paper related crafts and as such their was a wealth of these stalls about. The colours of all the wools and yarns for knitting, crocheting and other needle crafts was so visually appealing that if I was to show you all the pictures I took we'll be here all day but I do have a couple to show you that was particularly striking.

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debonnaire
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The above stall was a riot of colour and hosts a number of wools and yarns to use for felting, knitting, crocheting, etc. Erica also has her own brand of dyed wools seen in the upper left hand picture. If you follower her link you will see that she also produced hand painted needle point canvases and a host of other fibre crafting materials and tools.

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Like I said there were many stalls selling yarns, etc but another one which caught my eye was Addicted2Knit their richly coloured yarns and wools made me think of eating they were so delicious to look at and I am kicking myself even now as I type away because their was a small ball of yarn which caught my eye, that I now wish I had allowed myself to ignore my budget and buy.
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Another not on my budget items were paper craft items and as much as I would have loved to indulge in my past crafting loves, I had to be realistic and stick to my budget of mainly jewellery (namely beads) purchases.

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I did though get myself a set of alphabet letter stamps from the Hotshot Craft stall. I have been on the look out for letter stamps awhile now and these were just the right size, there were many fonts to choose from and I chose the one I liked best and I got the lot for all of £1.oo, result if there ever was any :0)

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So after trawling the top floor stalls I made my way down to the ground floor and allowed my eyes to continue to enjoy all the sights, chatted to few stall owners, exchanged business cards, etc and generally had a great time.

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Then I stumbled across the two bead stalls that was at the show and this is where my will power was put to the most challenging of tests. The first stall I visited was like so perfect but I didn't buy straight away, I wandered around till I found another one (pictured on the right): Findingbeads4u which though was quite good it helped make up my mind on where to make the majority of my purchases. I did make some purchases though at Findingbeads4u (see on the left). It had a great range of acrylic beads which I indulged myself in getting a few, along with some glass flower beads and a surprise bag of mixed beads and findings.

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I then returned to the first bead stall (see the two pics above): Totally Beads and got myself a nice selection of ceramic beads which I have been hankering after for quite sometime now (see in the pic to the left). I only wish I could have bought all, there was such a wide range available but I am happy with what I got and look forward to incorporating them into my designs.

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After the bead purchases I simply enjoyed the rest of the show doing more of the same that I mentioned earlier; looked, chatted, exchanged contact details, etc. I also took photos of a few more can't be forgotten artist, which I'll share with you now.
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Felted Landscapes by Gilda Baron

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This extremely accomplished Fibre artist blew me away with her Felted Landscape, my pictures cannot even begin to do them justice, the 3-D aspect of her work can only truly be appreciated when seen with the naked eye (although an accomplished photographer would do much better than I ever could).

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She is a teacher of fibre art and you can find info on her upcoming August, 2010 summer classes here and in searching for more info on her I also found this most delightful video interview of her.
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If you are lucky to get hold of Women Weekly magazine issue released on the 5th of March you'll find a how to project tutorial by Gilda, the project is called Landscape Project. There is alos a DVD available via her website released this year which also tutors you on how to create her masterpieces.

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When I wandered downstairs to the basement floor I encountered a few more accomplished artists and crafters. The first was the colourful and bubbly Ingrid Wagner with her bright and in your face Rug & Art creations.

She was showing how you can knit and crotchet on an enormous scale, to create both visual and functional art pieces.
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The knitting needles were huge (see upper pic to the left handside of the lady sitting with one in her hand) as was the balls of yarn made of not only combined strands of different yarns (as seen being used by Ingrid in pic 1) but of also with recycled fleece blankets, etc turned into huge balls of knitting materials (see in upper pic no.3). People were invited to come along and sit and knit with these huge tools towards the creation of these huge floor rugs.

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There was also the opportunity to take part in a charitable knitting for breast cancer by the casting of one stitch per donation using the world's largest knitting needles, so you know I had to take part. In the middle pic above you can see most of the length of the needle on my left. It was a heavy undertaking as I was casting the third stitch of a new row so the needle on the left weighed what felt like a 'ton'. If you would like the opportunity to take part then check out where else she will be this year with her ginormous knitting needles for charity.

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I am more of a crochet girl mysel and so I'll be visiting her online shop to purchse myself some of her beautifully smelling crafted ash wood crochet needles.

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Next door to Ingrid I met Carol Meldrum a Textile designer of the company beatknit.

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Carol had on display her knitted icons which were cool and funny at the same time.

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She also had some of her other knitted and felted works on display of which you can purchase via he Misi or etsy shops.
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While at her stall I had the most lovely chat with both her and another show vistor, an elderly lady who imparted her joy of crafting and some of her knoweldge to both myself and Carol.
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I then made myself return to the ground floor for one last wander before going home and I was so glad I did because I came across a stall that I somehow missed.

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Clothkits

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It is a business that was quite popular in the 60's and 70's when it was first introduced then during the80's it sort of went underground and was bought by a large clothing caterlogue company which didn't od much with it. But thankfully it was bought over by new blood so to speak who relaunched it 2 year ago with ongoing success.
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I really like the simplicity of the idea; that is to print the pieces of the finished item onto the cloth which just needs to be cut out and stitched together to create a finished article to wear, etc. I already have plans to get my eldest daughter a kit as a birthday present for her to put together. I should be recieving the soon to be released new season caterlogue a few weeks time when it is released.

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Well not too long after that I left for my train ride home, I whiled away the hour on the train by completing some more cards, especially since I had given all that I had in my wallet away.

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It was a truly enjoyable day and it helped to ignite some new design ideas for me to try out. I even entered a competion at the show, I wonder if I'll be a lucky winner again.
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I returned home to eager girls who missed their mummy but more importantly I returned home tired but refreshed for 'My Life' if you know what I mean.

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