Whew, what a day on Sunday, although my Stitch Gathering actually started on Saturday after an e-mail from Sarah early afternoon saying that her flight from Shetland had been cancelled due to heavy fog!  The airline were going to be putting her on the overnight ferry and bussing her to Edinburgh, but that meant that her mum was now going to be arriving in Edinburgh to find no Sarah, and with no mobile, we couldn’t even contact her to tell her.

Our main concern was the lack of fabrics for the first class that Jenny and Sarah were due to be taking with Julie, making bibs, since Sarah was going to be bringing that, and was now going to be late, so I grabbed whatever I happened to have on hand that was baby suitable.  We then decided it would be easier if I went through to Edinburgh and met up with Jenny to take her to dinner, then I could spend the night there and not have to get up at the crack of dawn to come through from Edinburgh (remember that thought…)

By 6:15 I had grabbed everything I thought I would need and headed through to the Premier Inn at Leith Waterfront, and by 8:15 Jenny and I were sitting down for dinner at Prezzo, having surveyed several local options and discarded them on the grounds of food quality (too low), dress code (too high) and menu (too fishy).  By this point I had realised I’d forgotten Jack, so was already preparing his apologies for the following day, and mentally apologising to him for missing dinner, because we all know how much he likes to eat ;o)

Being the party animals we are, we were in bed just after 11, and sleeping nicely until about 3:20 am, when some of the hotel staff decided to take a little break just outside our open window and woke me up!  This was the point at which my mind started racing, thinking about the day ahead, and was about 5 minutes before I realised I’d left my class sample at home.  A few minutes after that I realised I’d also left the class notes and my copy of the pattern at home.  I wrestled with myself for about half an hour before I decided that the only thing to do would be to go back to Glasgow and get it, and then debated for another few minutes before I decided it would have to be then and there rather than during the morning session, in case I had to go and pick Sarah up from wherever her bus would be dropping her.  By 6:20 I was back in bed again, but I didn’t really sleep any more before we got up and showered and headed over to Napier’s Merchiston Campus, where the event was being held.

The meet and greet was held in the Glass House, part of the newly refurbished bit of the campus, and as can be seen on the YouTube video taken by Jonathan, Jo’s husband, was quite a noisy affair!

There was coffee available, and plenty of seats to wander between and perch on while we found ‘old’ friends, put faces to names we knew online, and met new friends.  We handed over our decorated tickets in exchange for a goody bag and lucky dip ticket (more on those later in the week) and finally did the nametag swap before heading off to our first class for the day.

Here’s my tag, which came from Lynsey, who, coincidentally, I had made my tag for:

And this is in my first class, which was Jo’s Cathedral Windows Pincushion.  Jo was demonstrating the ‘pressing’ part to create the base:

I elected to help out the people at my end of the table with the pressing rather than sewing my own, since I can already make cathedral windows, but I got a chance to take another photo in between talking the ear off the 4 ladies unfortunate enough to be stuck near me ;o)

Sarah finally managed to rock up at about half past 10, and here she and Jack are investigating her goody bag (he found Beanie’s bump a very comfy place to rest):

We had a fabulous lunch, which I didn’t get photos of, but Jonathan got one (see more of their pics over at The Stitch Gathering Facebook page)

We could also see all the embellished tickets together in one place, where Vanessa actually thought to take a photo (I wasn’t that smart):

And we got to dive into the lucky dip, which brought many squeals of delight (more of that later in the week)

After I’d eaten my lunch, I was approached by one of my class attendees for the afternoon who hadn’t realised that being the mean, nasty teacher I was, that there was prep to be done for my paper piecing class, so after a little trip to Jo’s pop up shop for some fabric, we quickly got her prep done while the others were oohing and aahing over show and tell (photos on the Facebook page here)

Finally I was up in front of the masses (well, there were 16 of them, it just *felt* like the masses ;o) ) in the small classroom.  Jonathan got a short video of this too.  Don’t ask what I’m trying to explain here!

And here are some photos I took of the brave souls battling to make their teapots:

It’s hard work trying to wrestle with backwards fabrics and funny angles, so as a reward for finishing their first section, I gave them some fortification before tackling the next steps.  Jack thought he should have some too:

After a while they were all flying through it (probably sugar assisted):

Unsurprisingly there weren’t any finishes, given the million and one pieces in the pattern, but everyone did so well with what they did manage, and no-one came after me with a rotary cutter, so I assume the class went okay ;o)

After the class it was back to Avery Homestore to get a look at the exhibition (see yesterday’s post), have a few canapes and sparkling wine/water, and do a little discounted shopping (because who wouldn’t want that?)

Finally, after letting Jonathan and the rest of the AH staff run round pulling the exhibition down, we collected up all our entries and a few of us headed down to Pizza Express for dinner.

Sarah’s arrived first, so Jack decided he’d share it with her.  Here’s his slice:

He was distinctly unimpressed with the fluid options though:

And he was quite disgusted with the healthy option I’d gone for (it tasted fab though):

Then I dropped Sarah and Jenny back in Leith, drove home, and crawled into bed at 11 pm.  All I can say is it was a good job it was a bank holiday yesterday, even if the kids were still in school and woke me up on their way!

A big thanks to Jo and her team for arranging such a fabulous day, roll on next year!