Just about recovered from showing at the Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace. Five days is a long time to be on your feet and smiling all day! As usual it was lovely to meet so many appreciative customers, although – also as usual – I didn’t get a chance to look around. Thankfully I was able to read about the highlights of the show in the wonderful blog A Handmade Cottage, written by the lovely Jodie May, who kindly mentioned me for the second time!

my dear little stand

As usual my photos of the stand don’t convey how nice it looks in reality! As you can see, I’ve now acquired a second old – sorry, vintage – suitcase, which seem to be obligatory at shows and markets nowadays. They do add something lovely to displays though.

I’ve also developed some new kits which I’m rather pleased with. On cartridge paper I’ve printed instructions for the beaded rayon scarves and a little beaded bag. Customers can choose a booklet containing 2 patterns -either Zelda and Daisy scarves, or Minna scarf and bag. The booklet fits into the small hand-decorated box along with 50g of rayon and a mix of coloured glass seed beads. Both will be available from my Etsy shop very soon.

new scarf kits

I had an unexpected guest on my stand. Before the show opened one morning I was chatting to another stall holder about the Lace Blouse hanging on one of the walls and saying it was easy to knit, especially as it had a plain back. She lifted the blouse to have a look at the back, very calmy dropped it and said ‘there’s a huge spider on the back’! I really don’t like spiders and we had to enlist the services of a man from the Empress Mills stand to dispose of it (even he was reluctant, but he put it in a bag and let it go outside). We both agreed that it was good she had discovered the spider and not me or a customer – as there could have been a stampede! All I can say is that the spider had very good taste – it’s one of my most popular samples.

a spider with taste!

Finally – no post about Ally Pally is complete without a photo of the view. It really is spectacular on a sunny day, looking out across London. The one I took looks like a painting by an Old Master.

what a view!