The Knitting and Stitching Show in Harrogate

Cumbria was reeling under the deluge that had dumped the floods on the Lake District on Thursday, 19th November, and a car-load of KEG members had planned a visit to the Harrogate Knitting and Stitching Show on the Sunday. Unfortunately, Lesley (our KEGBLOG person) was unable to get through on the shattered road system (bridges down etc), and Joan was poorly, so I set off on Sunday morning with Kate (a friend from the village) and picked up Gloria in Penrith (flooding was minimal to the east of us).

The three of us had a great time. After a two hour, uneventful journey to Harrogate, we found the multi-storey car park easily and arrived at the exhibition at just gone 10am, just in time for a coffee within the beautiful theatre area (I think the Queens Hall) which has recently been refurbished. The Knitting and Stitching was, as usual, very good – so many trade stalls to choose from; really good exhibitions; a full size hand-knitted boat(!); friendly people; etc. As usual for me, it needed a superhuman effort to keep my bearings in the many halls and, again, you feel you might have missed a whole area. Very disorientating when you’re so engrossed in everything!
Gloria managed to track down the Yorkshire Women’s group who provide kits to make little crib figures, Kate bought a bargain pack of superb knitting wool, and I ended up with many beautiful threads ‘just in case’, and had a full demonstration of a Janome embellisher – wow!

We all agreed that there were definitely more stands on knitting than before at the show but, nevertheless, a good mix. Some stalls had run out of some of their wares, it being the last day, but in other cases there were bargains to be had as traders didn’t want to take too much stuff back. The time went by so quickly. I always come away feeling I should have gone back to get that book, or kit …

Pat Knifton