The Great Knitting and Stitching Disappointment

Sigh.

I'm back.

It was not great.

I always do this. I have a doctorate in doing this, ask my family and friends.

I SOOOOOO look forward to something, and I build it up in my head, and then, when it finally comes around, it's SOOO big and fantastic in my head, it can be nothing but a bit shit in actuality.

I shouldn't have been surprised really. I must try to stop doing it. I blame my optimistic nature. See, if I just thought everything was shit, then it would always be great wouldn't it. Oh well. You can't change how you are.

First of all, it was PACKED. When I say packed, I mean, if you'd have fainted from the intense 90 degree heat that it was in there, no one would have noticed. You'd have just been carried around for hours in a slow moving crowd with your toes scraping the floor. Now, I'm not great in crowds, or at moving slowly, or in indoor heat. Imagine my great joy at being in all 3 at once. Oh yeah.

I do have to say, the work in the textiles exhibition from the colleges and universities was amazing. You know, the sort of stuff you just walk round staring at with your mouth by your knees wishing you'd thought of making something that beautiful. I'm not sure if I'm breaching copyright, but I took a couple of photos. There were a lot of places you weren't allowed to take pictures at all, but my ones were at least legal.








The big felted granny square blanket I loved, from a student at Birmingham University, and the bags from Buckingham and Chilterns University. Fantastic stuff.

At lunchtime, we decided to go to the bar for lunch and have the most expensive and least appetising jacket potato with 4 bits of grated cheese on it. Wow, that was lovely. We sat at a table completely by accident with Lyndsey and her mum.We didn't see any other Ravelers who "came out" to us. It turns out, from being on Ravelry last night, that there were 3 bars. So saying meet you in the bar wasn't the greatest of plans. Now that we know that we all want to meet up, though, I think we'll try to get together sometime else.

Here's us in the bar we thought it was! My friend, Dawn on the left, Lyndsey in the middle and me.



The great hall was full of stalls.

Which was great.

If you liked embroidering. Or sewing. Or beading. Or felting.

Yeah, I know, I've done some of that stuff. But remember. I had a shopping list for stuff I NEEDED for knitting projects. URGENT stuff, people. There was nothing much to buy. And believe me, I looked. As much as the intense heat and the slow moving crowd would allow. That was the other thing. You'd get to a stall you liked the look of, and then have to gaze lovingly at the needles/beads/books from 3 meters away because the hot and sweaty slow moving crowd had also decided to stop there.

Appreciate my frustration please reader(s)

I had withdrawn good money to spend here. Wanna see what I got. Don't bother getting yourself ready, it won't take long.



Yes, that's IT!!!!!!!!! Nice needles, some cashmere and a book. Wow.

While I'm here, I want to moan. I would like to know this. How come I pay £12 to get in and then the prices of the stuff I bought is the same as the normal price. No show discount, no thank you for driving 75 minutes to get here, no so sorry we didn't bring much for you to buy, NO NOTHING. I may as well have gone internet shopping.

Which is precisely what I did when I got home. I bought online, all the things on my shopping list I went to get at the show.

Oh well, it was a good day out. We stopped on the way home to spend some money that the exhibitors missed out on, and Rob likes the look of the cashmere for a scarf.

In the meantime, Basil likes it more!



By the way, if you're heading there today or tomorrow, have a great time. Smirk. Don't bother taking more than a few pounds. Smirk.

I'm not bitter.