The Stitch and Craft Show

Last weekend me and fellow Feeling Stitchy blogger Carina went to investigate The Stitch and Craft Show at London's Olympia. The Stitch and Craft show covered three floors, with stitching (mainly cross stitch) on the ground floor, knitting in the basement and paper-crafting on the top floor. There was a wide selection of workshops and talks as well. Me and Carina arrived there early(ish) to catch a workshop from Emily Peacock, who is famous for her Hug and Kiss needlepoint kits, as well as a beautiful selection of other designs. It was fantastic hearing Emily talk about how she chooses colour and what it's like to run such a successful craft business. We got to have a go at stitching up a simple design of a key, thinking about how the colours we chose went together.

The lovely Emily Peacock - photo by Carina

We then later went to see another talk by Emily on how to do a selection of canvas stitches.

We then got to explore the rest of the show and we both came away with mixed feelings about it. It was fantastic seeing Emily Peacock and we also got to see Mr. X Stitch's brilliant display of contemporary embroidery, where we got to stay and stitch a while (and eat chocolate biscuits).

Mr. X Stitch and some of the wonderful work on display - photo by Carina

The opportunity to get to stitch with both Emily Peacock and Mr. X Stitch was fantastic, there's a really nice communal feel to being able to sit down, have a stitch and have a natter. There were also opportunities to stitch at tables run by The Cross Stitcher magazine. However the rest of the show was a little disappointing, the embroidery tended to be on the more traditional side, so we may not have really been the people the show was intended for. The show was certainly busy and there were lots of other people who seemed to love the stalls on offer. I can't really comment on the knitting and paper-crafting floors (although we did go and have a look) but it would have been nice to have had a bit more space in the stitching demo area like the knitters and the paper-crafters had in their demo areas.

In summary, if you are a hard core contemporary stitcher, The Stitch and Craft Show, which is an annual event may not be for you, however the organisers have provided some examples of contemporary stitching (for example Mr. X Stitch) and I am forever the optimist and only hope that as time progresses, contemporary stitching will feature more and more in the show, so you'll probably see me there visiting next year!