Liberty Treats - Yum Yum

Hi

Small gathering at Liberty last Thursday, including two new girls, sent along by the Relax and Knit people at Ally Pally. Here is a picture of Yvonne who heads up the Relax and Knit volunteers, with Yasmin who was new to knitting - but did really well mastering the basics.

They're enjoying the yummy's given to us by the cafe. Little pastry cases with chocolate filling and candied orange peel tops - delicious - but I'd already eaten a big piece of chocolate cake along with my healthy apple juice...

Knitting and Stitching Show

Hi

Great day yesterday at Alexandra Palace at the annual Knitting and Stitching Show. Once again I volunteered a day on the Relax and Knit stand. Always great fun - but it can also be VERY hard work. The day started with one of the highlights for me - sharing a teachng table with Prudence Mapstone - famous for her wonderful freeform knitting and crochet. Lovely to have Prudence teaching along with us. We also had a lady over from Sydney on holiday - Jan - who also came along and volunteered - at her first ever visit to the show. Word about our good work is reaching far and wide.



Later in the day a chance to catch up with all sorts of people both on the embroidery/textile art side and the knitting side of things.

A few things acquired during the day - very restrained for me at this show:)




Some interesting resin type things that would be good scarf holders of attached to the ends of cords for bag closures; silky scrunchy bits and green threads for the embroidery side of thigns - from Dale and Ian at Threadstudio - where we had an interesting Rugby discussion; mohair from Knitwitches and also some from Fybrespates and

my favourite buy of the day - now that I no longer believe knitting with set of double pointed needles is like wrestling with porcupine quills ggg.... Sox Stixs from Lantern Moon - I love their things - so yummy. You can also see my little black sheep also from Lantern Moon - but you can't see the Ladybird version - which was a pressie for Beth - which she received last night - whilst myself, Beth and her baby sister took over my nephews bedroom to watch the match on his big TV. Both Beth and I were very excited watching the match and made more than a few rude remarks about the French (well you know in the spirit of the game...).

A bit more sock yarn - from Get Knitted and also from Drops - with a great website Garnstudio with hundreds of really nice knitting patterns available for download - completely free of charge...


and lastly - here are a few images of our stand - really great stand this year - and we were not right next to any very noisy and repetative fashion show this time. We were in the Great Hall - sorry I didn't get to take more pictures of the show etc. I am going to Harrogate for the full 4 days in November, so hopefully can get a few more pictures there for you - and see a few more of the exhibits that I missed yesterday.

Thats Roberta on the left - one of the regular volunteer team, and in the lilac top in the middle Yvonne who is our Leader and guide and does such a grand job each time I can't put it into words. Yvonne is a walking knitting encyclopedia and born to do this wonderful job. I so admire her skills and dedication to this craft that she truly loves.

And I HATE blogger - why does it have to be so damn difficult to upload photos in the right place in your text, and why has it underlined this last part of my post when I did NOT ask it to do so...

I almost forgot, towards the end of the day we had another visitor - Xenobia Bailey - who Yvonne immediately knew - as a friend of Yvonne's had previously stopped Xenobia in the street in New York to admire a coat that Xenobia was wearing at the time. Wow can she do great things with corchet!!!

and she asked Yvonne if she might come back on Sunday for some knitting tuition. Here's a picture of Xenobia in a great outfit. Ever since I have been doing this volunteering, I have met so many great and incredibly creative people - it really is so inspriring.