Fun And Drama at Stitches...

Hi folks, I had a bit of a missing in action day yesterday after returning from my trip to the UK Craft Trade Show or Stitches as it's affectionately known, catching up with the laundry and those household chores that hubby never seems to notice need done.
I had an absolute blast with my two bestest buddies Enfys and Anne, they truly are the nicest sweetest friends and we share the same sense of humour and laid back atitude to life.
I have to say we were a bit disappointed at the lack of papercrafting stands at the show...it seems the crafty world has been taken over by all things stitching, knitting and crochet...it was wall to wall fabric and wool. So with none of the new Tim Holtz products for me to stroke and drool over, we spent a lot of time in Wetherspoons, chatting, catching up with special friends and drinking coffee. It was lovely to spend some time with my favourite Editor, the lovely Trish Latimer from Craft Stamper and pop by to see our Fiskars buddy Keren who was demo-ing Fiskars sewing tools on the Groves stand and to meet the new team at Fiskars UK.

And of course, no trip to Stitches would be complete without a visit to the Ministry of Mixology stand to say hello to my old mucker, the adorable, very talented but very naughty Andy Skinner and his equally talented side-kicks Brenda Brown and Nikki Acton, followed by a catch up with the lovely folks at Indigoblu to drool over all the amazing samples from their Design Team and there was just time before lunch to pop by AALL & Create to check out Tracy Evans fabulous range of new stamps and admire her amazing talent...I fell in love with these projects online but they are much more stunning in real life.

And look what I found...a looks familiar "Entomology" shirt  which would have been the perfect gift for a very special someone but despite my best efforts... it wasn't for sale...

After lunch we headed over to join the lovely Michelle Johnson at Stix 2 for a fun make and take project and were treated to a lovely coffee and the most yummy delicious strawberry/cream scone, so delicious in fact we returned on Tuesday for seconds.

And to round off the perfect day we headed to the PaperArtsy Make and Take workshop with the lovely Leandra and Jo Firth-Young. In a word, it was amazing. We had lots of fun making two beautiful projects using very different techniques.

were treated to refreshments and nibbles and came away with a load of stamps, stencils and paints. Thank you girls for sharing your amazing talent with us and for your kindness and generosity.

Some of Jo's beautiful samples on the PaperArtsy stand

Anne and I were staying overnight with Enfys who lives 10 minutes from the NEC and after a busy day, we were looking forward to a relaxing evening catching up with our Fiskars buddy Keren over a delicious dinner and a glass or two of vino. Little did we know there was a major DRAMA about to unfold but if you follow my blog you probably won't be surprised because Enfys and yours truly have a long long history of dramatic travel adventures and you would be forgiven for thinking, we should not be allowed out unaccompanied.

If you're not familiar with the NEC, there are 7 car parks, North 1, North 2 etc, with parking for hundreds of cars, sectioned off  by hedges with free shuttle buses to take you from the car parks to the halls. Enfys usually parks in North 1 but it was closed and she was re-routed to another which she was unfamiliar with. So make yourself a cuppa and grab a comfy sofa while I share the saga of the NEC car park.

The shuttle bus dropped us off and we headed off on a freezing cold dark night into the warren of car parks to find the car. But our intrepid driver couldn't remember which car park held our transport. We knew it wasn't North 1 so she set off across the tarmac frantically clicking her key fob muttering that she remembered parking beside a hedge while Anne and I stood with our overnight bags, shivering and teeth chattering. Fortunately a very very kind Good Samaritan took pity on these hapless travellers and offered to drive us around all the car parks to find the missing vehicle. So we loaded the bags in the boot, hopped in to her lovely cosy car with Enfys in the front armed with her key fob. I kid you not we had travelled a distance of 2 metres when 6 metres in the distance the tail lights of a vehicle responded to the clicking and we very sheepishly thanked our Good Samaritan and vacated the car feeling like complete idiots.. Yes, you couldn't make it up if you tried and as our female knight in shining armour drove off into the night, I swear she had that "I wonder if they have escaped from somewhere" look on her face.

I'll be back tomorrow with the concluding part of our Stitches Adventures which you'll be pleased to know was saga free...well apart from my little run in with the over zealous security folks at Birmingham International Airport.

Hugs Kath xxx