Knitting And Stitching And Winning And Boozing

So. If you read the blog you will know that we won the Best Yarn Shop In The Midlands AGAIN this year! And if you don't read the blog, then we won the Best Yarn Shop In The Midlands AGAIN this year! Ha. Amazing!!!

PROOF!

There's an awards ceremony hosted by Aceville Publications who do Let's Knit and Let's Get Crafting (and a host of other titles) at the end of the Knitting And Stitching Show in Ally Pally. The idea is that you go and enjoy the day and then have a soiree in the evening where you meet lots of people and have your photo taken with the certificate. We went last year too because we are TWO TIMES WINNERS! Ha. Shut up Eleanor. 

Anyway, I should start with the premise that I hate London so Vezza has come with me both times, both with t'babbeh but last time she was safely tucked up in womb-land, this time she was just a joy. Anyway, our train set off at 8.30 ish so we were there bright and early. Kind of. This is how I looked at half six in the morning: 

Can you tell I'm not a morning person? But I'm also not the kind of person that tries on her outfit before the day that she's wearing it apparently and that dress was. not. working. with the jumper. I tried it on with a vest top that was hanging around and it looked great but I didn't have a skirt to wear with it! So me and Chris hopped into his car and skated round to my house, Only. Trams. Ugh. And other traffic. When we got onto my road, it was chocca-block so I got out of the car, ran to my house, picked up a skirt, and got back into the car all whilst he was still in the jam. Only. Before I got my skirt on I was only wearing leggings! LEGGINGS AS TROUSERS FOLKS! Not a good look. Ha. But anyway, once I'd got my face on and it was after 9am I looked more like this: 

#toiletselfie.

Much better. The train ride out was uneventful. The train station was slightly feministly eventful. Look: 

ADVERTS FOR BOOB JOBS?! How is that even allowed?!?! Is that just a London thing? Does everybody in London hate their boobs?? Well they bloody will do once they sat down for a wee in King's Bloody Cross or wherever it was that we landed in. Ugh. Slight anger. Which dissipated almost exclusively by seeing this: 

Platform 9 and three quarters. We didn't queue up to see it though. Too much to do. 

The underground was uneventful however we did see a woman crocheting!!!

And then as we were coming up the escalator I saw this woman: 

Queen of the surreptitious photo. :) We were trying to decide if she was going to the Knitting And Stitching Show and whether she'd knitted it. Turns out, when we met her later at the show, that she had! She was a lovely lady - a nurse with a masters in health informatics who had recently come over with her husband from Denmark. She loved her dogs. And knitting. Good woman. 

Anyway - since I wrote that part of the blog a whole busy day has happened - mega busy in fact. :) So, where do I start from here??? I'm gonna give you a photo I reckon. 

The main entrance hall is called the Palm Court and it is covered in palms. Nice place to rest and feed Layla. 

Oh yes, when we got in we went to the Box Office, told them we were VIPs (ha) and expected our tickets to be forthcoming but because of some error somewhere (no idea whose error) the tickets weren't there and I had to spend ten minutes explaining why we were there and why we weren't going to pay to get in. It felt very much like 'do you know who I am??'. Ha. 

There were many beautiful things at the show. One of my favourites was this: 

The Jamieson's stand. I still haven't bought anything from them but every time I see them I go a bit gaga and light headed - this is my wool people. Fine, wool, scratchy. Ahhhhhh. 

And we saw this: 

Which I'm not going to tell you anything about because I hope there will be lots more to tell you. :)

And I bought this: 

As a kit and I do feel a bit diddled on the price but bugger it. The pattern was like the first thing I favourited on Rav and now I have it in my greasy mitts - I don't mind paying for the privilege. I also bought this: 

And this: 

Both of which I'm thrilled with but it's nearly time for home and I've loads more to tell you so I won't twitter on too long.

At five thirty it was time to go and collect our award. This happens in the Londesborough Tearoom (which was where the bride from the tattoo convention wedding on Don't Tell The Bride had her reception). It's painted a yucky salmon colour and there's naked men of which we approve: 

So, basically, you just go in, have a chat, have a glass of bubbly, get your photo taken, get a goodie bag and head off. But somehow we've made a few more friends this year - Baa Ram Ewe and Black Sheep Wools and the ladies from Let's Knit - so we ended up chatting and drinking and somehow... I got drunk. haha. I spilled a drink on somebody who looked important and made a general tit of myself (I bet we don't win the award next year...). Anyway. Here are some photos: 

This one is of me and Sam who's my contact at Let's Knit and she's so lovely and we've never met before so it was great to meet her finally. She touched my bum - that's the photo on the left. 

And that's that. The award's now in the shop:

And hopefully the official photo will be less horrendous than last year and I might share it if I see it around at some point. 

And now for the final, and most important (!?!?) bit of the blog, the prize! I've finally got together a photo montage of everything you will win if you've tagged or retweeted the last few competition posts and because it's taken so long to get together I'm going to extend it until tomorrow night. Here the gifts are in all of their beauty! I think you may be a little surprised... 

You're not winning the certificate or booze. That's just to remind us all why we're doing this. No. You get three skeins of the Namolio linen (which I love), three balls of the Navia Duo DK, a faaaaaaaahbulous beading kit to make that lovely snowflake (apparently a 12 year old can make it, so you deffo can you clever things) and a Sew magazine (that came free in my VIP goodie bag so you've got a little bit of VIP status too. Fact).

Good?!!? It's worth quite a bit more than the £20 I decided on but it's so worth it for the colours. Individually they're all things I would LOVE for myself (apart from the mag, I can't sew, I won't sew and I need to get over it). Anyway. Share and share alike people. Let's have one last big push to get lots of lovely new likers into the gang. :)

Thank you all SO much for the support. It means the absolute world, especially with the sad news over at Purl City yarns in Manchester, your support of this messy, disorganised, chaotic little yarn shop is 100% necessary and appreciated.

LOVE Eleanor. xxxxxxxxx