Show Time!
| What a busy month! We've been busy preparing for the Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace, London for the last couple of weeks. We've been designing, putting threads onto thread cards, chopping up fabric, shuffling papers and generally rushing about! We've now got one week left before we go to the show so it seems an ideal time to release our newsletter special on visit stitching shows. We're very excited about the show as it's our first opportunity to show off our new Designers by Stitchtastic range. Newsletter readers have been able to see these for a couple of months now, but there's nothing quite like the immediate reaction we get when stitchers are standing right in front of us. If you're able to come along to the show on one of the four days between Thursday 6th Oct and Saturday 9th Oct, we'd love you to visit us and give us feedback on any of our designs, but particularly the new ones, as we always like to hear your views. |  The Knitting and Stitching Show, coming next week to Ally Pally. |
Visiting Stitching Shows
| Stitching and craft shows are a fantastic way to spend a day, stock up on your essentials and see all of the new products that your favourite companies have to offer. We exhibit at 3 shows per year, at Alexandra Palace in London, Olympia (also in London) and the NEC in Birmingham. If you've never been to a stitching show, I can recommend any of these 3 shows as they are amazing! They're much bigger than you might expect - Alexandra Palace is, I think I'm right in saying, the biggest show of its kind in Europe and anyone who has been to the NEC will know that each hall is enormous, full of your favourite craft and stitching companies eager to show you their wares and show off their new bits and pieces. Having done these shows now for almost 5 years, I feel qualified to give you the bext advice I can on visiting. Advice on exhibiting would be a different matter - my one piece of advice there would be to make room on your stand for a chair! First of all, make sure you plan your journey in advance. Ally Pally (that's what we 'in the know' call Alexandra Palace!) is in London, as is Olympia. The traffic in both areas can be horrendous, so if you can, take public transport for all, or at least the last part, of your journey. Investigate if a bus trip to the show is running from your local area and let someone else worry about the driving and the parking - they're used to it! Secondly, have a look at the website for the company running the show you're interested in before you go. They will have a list of companies who are exhibiting on there, so you can work out where you might look for the essentials you want, although be ready to consider other companies as prices can be lower, making it worth your while shopping around a little. Thirdly, make a list of everything you NEED to buy. Then you can relax, take your time and look at the lovely new products on offer, without worrying that you might forget about those essentials. Now on to your actual arrival at the show. For the first half hour or so, try not to buy anything. Have a look round the whole show, quite quickly, making a mental note of the location of the stands you'd like to go back to. Buying a show catalogue can really help here, but you can manage without if your budget won't stretch to it. Also make a mental note of the location of the toilets and where you might each lunch - they'll be much busier later on. OK, so you've had a quick scout round and you know where you need to go to buy the bits on your list. Now spend an hour or two browsing the new designs you like the look of, or maybe the new companies you've not seen before. Make sure you take a catalogue if they have one, it will remind you of them later on. The, if you can, go for lunch early. Trust me, an early lunch will save you a great deal of time later. Bring sandwiches if you're that way inclined, but the food at the shows is usually pretty good and not too expensive, plus you might be more likely to get a seat if you buy food. After lunch, pop round to get all of your essentials then spend your last hour or so at our stand, buying all of the lovely kits, charts, accessories and aperture cards we have on offer....! OK, maybe not just our stand, but visit all of your favourites again before you leave, just to make sure you haven't missed anything. You'd be surprised how some staff will recognise you and be happy to have a chat with a returning customer, even if they're just returning from earlier in the day! Don't be shy about chatting with staff, they won't force you to buy something and sometimes just enjoy a chat after just standing and smiling at people all day. Finally, don't miss your bus and try to avoid the rush hour if you can. Have a great time! Visit http://www.twistedthread.com/ or http://www.ichf.co.uk/events_calendar.php for more details. Stop press! If you are attending the show, come and see us and mention that you're a newsletter reader for a special free gift. |  The Stitchtastic stand, complete with stitcher!  Different show, more stitching! |
Star Stitchers
I wanted to take this opportunity to thank one of our wonderful model stitchers who has recently started to stitch for us, Monica. Monica is an old friend of Stitchtastic who has recently retired from her job and so found she had a little more time to indulge in her favourite hobby, so I asked her if she would like to stitch a few things for us to exhibit at the stitching shows. She jumped at the chance (free kits, a chance to show them off, who wouldn't?!) and has just finished her first stitch in time for the Ally Pally show. It's one of our brand new Designers by Stitchtastic range and is actually one of Patrick's designs - the Computer Sayings kit. It looks amazing! The text looks wonderfully computerry (OK, I know, it's not a word but you know what I mean) and the colours really stand out, they're quite unusual. The kit comes with several amusing sayings for you to choose from, unfortunately Monica didn't get a choice as I told her which one to stitch! The kit would be a brilliant present for anyone who works with computers, uses computers and (especially) fixes computers! It's priced at £29.95 and comes with Zweigart aida and DMC threads, presorted onto thread cards for ease of use. It's a really good size when stitched too, measuring just over 11" square. |  A fantastic, unusual stitch. |
Next Month
| I'm afraid next month's newsletter will have to venture into the territory we call Christmas....I know, it can't be that time already, I'm afraid it is! See you then! |  |
Questions or comments? E-mail me at sarah@stitchtastic.com or call +44 (0) 114 2353958
Until next time
Sarah
Designer