My day out in Brighton…

I had a lovely time at the Creative Stitches and Hobbycraft Show at the Brighton Centre today.  I went last year and reported back so I thought I would do the same! 

There is a mixture of interests catered for including knitting, quilting, paper crafts, card making, general sewing and also miscellanous stalls like a bloke selling hanging baskets!  This year there were less fabric stalls, in fact I only saw 3: Stitch Witch, Eternal Maker and the most beautiful stall I ever saw from Dandelion Designs; they were 4 deep at this stall, all oohing and aahing over the vintage buttons, Scandinavian-esque stitchery and Union Jack Quilt kits. 

(beginning to regret not buying this kit…….)

So what did I buy? Well I bought lots of hab-dab stuff including invisible thread, a new blade for my rotary cutter, a new bias binder maker (which allows to add iron on tape to added) and a loop turner. 

A new cross stitch kit for Christmas, I was on my way out when I spotted this and just had to have it!

Some strips of pretty panels, not sure what I’ll do with this but it was too pretty to leave behind!  I could applique the panels to t-shirts for the girls or on  a bag maybe……

and then……. from The Eternal Maker the most lovely Echino linen!   Yummy yummy yummy! Echino Bonbon in brown.  I bought 2 metres intending to make a skirt for myself and it cost more than I usually spend on fabric (£16/m) but I HAD to have it!.  This stall had the best fabrics I’ve seen in the flesh for ages.  They have a shop and workshop based in Chichester which I have visited before and will be heading back there soon!

There was a stall run by the UK Hand Knitting Association which was running knitting workshops.  Wanting to capitalise my recent knitting adventure I had a little introduction to increasing and decreasing stitches and knitted myself a little kite shape.  The lady also gave me a set of knitting needles and a ball of acrylic yarn although not as nice as the cotton yarn and bamboo needles I got from the WI workshop it will do for practise!

After this I decided to go Fabricland where I could easily spend all day and much too much money!  I’ve bought from the website before but of course you have to pay postage but as I was in Brighton, well it would have been rude not to visit! 

I bought this cotton seersucker with a peach stripe which was £1.99/m!  So I bought 4m!  I intend to make a shirt for myself with this. 

 

This is a jersey mix which I intend to make a top based on one I bought from Dorothy Perkins. 

This is a polyester blend, which I don’t normally like but it will make a lovely skirt for me.  There might be enough for one of the girls as well!

So that was my haul from Brighton, I found the show at the Brighton Centre a little disappointing this year, mainly as there were much less fabric retailers this year.  Chatting to a stall holder apparently it costs too much for the fabric retailers as they have to have a large stall to hold the stock.  In fact all the fabric retailers had small stalls whereas the paper craft retailers had large stalls.  I think if you are interested in more than just 1 craft then it would be worthwhile but I don’t think I’ll bother next year, especially as the best stall there is one I can easily get to, living between Brighton and Chichester! 

These fabrics will have to wait for a little while as the next project is decorating Miss M’s bedroom….