A Stitching Odyssey: East Side Meetup!

A week ago today I had a delightful day in Nottingham (East Midlands...East Side...see what I did there?!?) meeting crafty bloggers at a somewhat unique meetup. The day got off to an exceptional start when I stepped out of the train station and right into the arms of Hopkinson - three floors with vintage and antique homeware, clothes, stitching goodies and so much more. Luckily I had an hour to kill and I ended up leaving with the 1940s-1950s fabrics pictured above (3.5 metres of each!), some vintage buttons and tailor's chalk. I could have bought so much more, but I'd already spent my budget for the whole day!

Before heading off to meet the others I greedily took some snaps too! If you visit Nottingham and love vintage, I urge you to visit Hopkinson...you can even have tea and cake there too!

Anyway, back to the meetup which was meticulously organised by Sam at Create It Samantha and Kat at Krafty Kat. We met at Wired Cafe for divine tea and cake, as well as some crafty chatter. It was actually really nice not to just talk about sewing, and to find out what crafts some of the bloggers are into. The meetup was 'sponsored' by Home Crafts, who generously provided goodie bags for us all...I felt like a kid again getting excited about a party bag!  

There was also a secret present swap and I was the lucky recipient of this cool brooch kit from Amy at Almond Rock. Understandably, poor Amy didn't really want to hand it over, so I must make her proud of the end result!

So you're thinking this sounds absolutely lovely, but not exactly unique as meetups go. I know you are, don't deny it! But where Sam and Kat really went above and beyond was by organising a 'tour' of the local Cath Kidston branch, where we heard all about the new fabric lines for SS14 and Cath's process for choosing prints. And also by finally trotting us off to The Bead Shop for a free taster session where we made some cute earrings. They have an impressive selection of workshops that I definitely plan on checking out in the future. 

All in all, it was a fun-packed day with a tremendous amount of preparation and thought put into it! Thank you Sam and Kat! And the highlight was meeting such friendly bloggers with a real range of interests, making for some interesting conversations!

Pictured above from left to right:

Sam - Create It Samantha

Me

Daire - Doing it the Open Way

Amy - Almond Rock

Sally - Sally Bee makes...

Hannah - Dainty & Ivory

Kat - Krafty Kat

Kelly - To Become Mum

What about you? Have you been to any good meetups lately? I know a bunch of lovely ladies are meeting on Goldhawk Road for some retail therapy today...