Harrogate Knitting and Stitching Show-November25-28

[beattie]

Thanks for letting us know everyone is home safe and well. Now all put your feet up for a day or two after a whole lot of full-on bagging excitement.

[Offcuts]

Today was supposed to be a rest day! Tomorrow is a volunteer fair where people who need volunteers in this country and abroad have stalls and the student come around to see whats going. These days voluntary work on their cv is advisable. MissyG from HITbags is very kindly taking me and all the stuff. We shall have students at the other end to fetch and carry. It should be good. We shall be drumming up interest for the uni pod and giving away about 100 bags. It is only for 3 hours.

[beattie]

I like that - "Only three hours"

Have another great day Offcuts the Indefdatigable!

[Ivybags]

Or something like that anyway !!!!

[Offcuts]

Ivybags, have you seen my shoulders in the pic with Lottie and her grandparents?! I am supposed to do an excercise to pull the left one down but I keep forgetting, haven't got time, and can't be bothered! I know I should though! And only taking crocs to Harrogate was a mistake as well!

[beattie]

Whoops! LOL

[Offcuts]

So to our Gok Wan experience. When we found out that Gok was going to be filming at Harrogate we thought we must make him a bag, especially as he lives in Leicester. I asked Hannah from Leicester High School to design the bag. She designs and sell her own designed clothes on the internet so I thought she would be the ideal person. Together with Jan Robbins, the school art teacher she made the wonderful bag shown below. It is made of black leather with purple tartan handles and trim. The silver skulls were screenprinted on to the leather, and there were gold star studs on the back.

Here is Hannah with her bag


and the back


The next job was to get the bag to Gok, which proved to be quite a challenge because we had to get through his production team and his minder. We eventually managed to talk our way into the ground level where the VIPs were. All of a sudden Hannah spotted him behind us so before thinking about it too much I managed to pass the bag to him. He seemed very pleased, but his minder made it clear that I wouldn't be able to talk to him. I was very worried that it would be lost, but when we were outside on our way to get something to eat when we saw the minder again. I asked him about the bag and he said it was in their bags. Phew!

Tomorrow I am going to type him a letter on my old typewriter explaining all about morsbags and we are going to give it to his parents who run a fish and chip shop in Leics. I have some nice fabric to make his mum a bag too.

[Krisaby]

Well DONE Offcuts! What initiative you have. A beautiful bag and a beautiful bit of gorilla work to go with it!

[Ivybags]

What a fabulous Gokbag....hope he gok it..........

Hannah makes a great model - love the leggins - they go with it beautifully

[sazziej]

Huge congratulations Hannah and Offcuts - well done

[squeak42]

yep - Hannah was great - as soon as she arrived she started helping people to make their bags. Her mum went shopping and came back with a gorgeous cardigan - but it was in a plastic bag! so we just had to sit her down to learn to make a bag - Hannah showed her how...

Gok was filming one of his shows so when Offcuts and Hannah went downstairs Hannah got really close to the top stage whilst all the show was happening. I reckon she will definitely be on the TV when it's shown in January.

Great day had by all especially Hannah!

Squeak xx

[beattie]

Wow! That's such a cool bag! You did a super job there Hannah, and great guerilla-ing all round Congratulations!

[Christie]

I've now recovered enough to give an end of show update for everyone.

My drive home was fine yesterday morning. The people at my b and b lent me a brush to sweep off all the snow that had fallen overnight and my car that hadn't moved for 5 days started first time! It was slow getting out of Harrogate but the roads had been cleared and the sun shone for me all the way home. About half an hour later we had a blizzard here which continued for most of the afternoon so I made it back just in time. After a bowl of soup I had a long soak in the bath and then went to bed and slept for 2 hours. I felt much better after that.

I really enjoyed the show although it was tiring. It was great to meet so many lovely people, morsbaggers and visitors. All our helpers were brilliant and we all had a lovely sociable time at the show and in the evenings. We had quite a few people who had made a bag last year and came back to make another or just to show us that they still used their bag.

About the Brothers, the lady from the Brothers stand told me to use the 3.5 setting for the straight stitch rather than 2.5. So that's what we did and it seemed fine. We had been finding that the machines struggled a bit with sewing on the handles on 2.5.

A young girl who came on Friday had the identical machine at home and had learnt to sew at the quilt museum courses at York. She told me that she used the stop/ start button rather than the foot control. Because of that I showed Lucy to sew that way with the setting on slow at first and then medium when she was more confident. I'm just passing this on as a tip because I think for children it is a safer and easier way to learn. I did some sewing myself using that method and it takes a bit of getting used to after using a foot control for so many years but if people are used to a foot control then I think it is easier.

[beattie]

Golly! You normally use 2.5? I only ever sew on 3.5 - 4.5! Thicker fabric needs longer stitches. I've come across youngsters who normally use the press button stop and start too, and the Brother staff find that using the foot control feels awkward as well. They're obviously used to using the button as well. I've made bags with wheelchair users at shows, using the button for manual stop/ start and the slider for speed control and they've been very impressed with it. Once you get used to it, it's easy enough.

[Ivybags]

I always thread my bobbins that way too. A lady who came to Westpoint last year had also bought the same Brother just before the show - and her free after sales tuition used the on off button method only, not the foot control