A Stitching Odyssey: Birmingham Rag Market meet-up, the round-up!

In layman's terms, yesterday was bloody awesome! Fifteen fantastic ladies joined Kat and I at the Birmingham Rag Market - from as far and wide as Bath and Merseyside no least - for what was our first ever go at organising a meet-up. Despite my initial nerves, the day was an absolute pleasure in every way, thanks to the easy-going, genuine and good nature of everyone who came.

As an organiser, my mother-hen instincts seriously kicked in and I didn't take as many good photos as I would have liked. I'll summarise the day as best as I can, but if you're after quality photos, you'd best keep your eyes peeled for related posts by blogging friends - all listed at the end.

Kat and I met our brood at Birmingham New Street train station, armed with handmade name brooches and edible goodies to keep their energy levels nice and high.

First we hit the Rag Market - inside and out. Annoyingly, the fabric and notions stalls are really spread out, so it does make for a bit of a 'messy' experience.

After a couple of hours we were more than ready for a sit-down and some lunch at the tried and tested Cafe Soya. They reserved a big table for us at the back and I bet they were very pleased they did by the time we left!

Sitting down for lunch gave everyone a great opportunity to chat and get to know each other a bit better. The conversations were definitely flowing freely, which was lovely to see.

It also gave us all a chance for one MAMMOTH swap. I totally didn't manage to capture the sheer volume that people brought with them, but trust me when I say, it was HUGE!!!

These pictures really sum up what I love about our kind. We're excellent at sharing and not at all afraid to get stuck in! I'm going to guess that super-organised Claire supplied the scissors, then Helen and Rachel got down to business sharing out some fabric.

I did extremely well out of the swap. Not only did I manage to giveaway all but one of my swap items, but I also received some truly wonderful things back: a super cool Hawaiian print cotton from Katie, a beautiful seersucker print from Karen, a really useful bobbin organiser from Claire, a precious lot of vintage notions from Mellie and some pretty floral canvas and funky salmon jersey from Kat!

Re-fuelled and with swapping out of our systems, we proceeded to terrorise the good owners of the Fancy Silk Store and Barry's Fabric Superstore. I'm not joking when I say these shops are overwhelming when you don't have a particular purchase in mind, but an unmissable experience nonetheless.

Now, I'm not intentionally trying to make you all even more jealous, but it's only natural that you would be. The owner of the Fancy Silk Store was so impressed with the size of our group, that he gave us each a free pen. BOOM!!!  

I wasn't quite strong enough to resist buying stuff altogether, but I was relatively reserved and I did keep to my promise of staying away from florals and animal print!

Finally, here's a beautiful group shot (minus myself) - have you ever seen so many happy faces in one picture before?

Here's a list of attendees in the order that they appear in the group shot, from left to right and back to front:

Roisin - Dolly Clackett

Alice - Moonbeam

Helen - Sew Stylish

Katie - The Little Red Squirrel

Helen - Helen Made

Rachel - House of Pinheiro

Catherine - Catherine's Daze Blog

Amy - Almond Rock

Suzy - Suzy Sewing

Steph - Little Miss Twitchy

Mellie - Mellie's Workroom

Karen - Did You Make That?

Winnie - Scruffy Badger Time

Claire - Sew, Incidentally...

Kat - Krafty Kat 

Charlotte (sadly not pictured as she'd left by this point) - Keeping track of things 

From the bottom of my heart, thank you ladies so much for making it a very special day. It was fantastic to catch up with familiar faces and and great to meet new ones too. Hope to see even more of you next time ;o)