Cross stitch and bitch

The weekend before last, the girls (being Gail and Lotta) and I happened upon a whole new craft: cross stitch! But not any boring samplers, oh no. This was subversive cross stitch, by the Interior Anarchists. Those lovely people had organised an afternoon of free cupcakes and cross stitching at 93 Feet East, on Brick Lane. Free cakes? We were so there. They handed out hoops, needles, thread and squares of aida (something for which I had no a-idea there was a proper name), and off we went. Surrounded by their rather fun Banksy kits as inspiration, we decided to stitch various swear words, because really we all have a mental age of about ten. I went for "bitch" in a snazzy pink and orange combination. Here's the work in progress (note cakes on groovy cake stands made of vinyl records):

And finished, at home:

Given my decor doesn't really suit little framed bits of embroidery, I am considering making this into a bag, as I have a black jumper of the boyfriend's which accidentally got shrunk and felted in the wash (no, don't panic, it wasn't a handknit) that I could slice up. Not that I'm a great one for sewing, but I might be able to manage what I have in mind.

Clearly this is not a unique idea; these guys even have a book!

So that was all fun of itself, but it gets better! Gail and I went to Ally Pally last weekend, and the Interior Anarchists had a stall. We stopped by, and guess what? There was a photo of me doing my sweary stitch! I'm famous! There's a picture over at Gail's blog of me looking most pleased with this.

Ah yes, Ally Pally, that time of year again. Last year was the first time I went and it was enormous fun. This year? Less so I'm afraid. Didn't help that I'd sprained my ankle the evening before so I was limping around, but even so, the calibre of stalls seems to have decreased. Of course, the yarn stalls were great, and I bought a fair bit (Knitwitches in particular is a weakness of mine at knit-fests, and because they don't show many colourways on their website), but they seemed outnumbered by stalls of dubious relevant to "Knitting & Stitching", the title of the show. There were ready-made clothes, for a start. Jewellery. Hair pins. Loads of glitter and card making. OK, if it's a general craft fair, say so... I'm not sure about next year, I mean, it's fun, and I love participating in something so big in the UK knitting scene, but I could spend the £12 entry on another skein of sock yarn. We'll see.

I didn't take many pictures there, but this sign did amuse me as the inevitable bandwagon-hopping:

So where does all this stash go in the Ginger household? Well, up until yesterday, into a rather uninviting pile of disarray:

That's three plastic tubs and a whole lot of overspill into bags. Not great, although at least it was all sealed in ziplocs against moths. But now, now we have a storage solution. May I present, the trunks:

Don't they look great? I rang and ordered them from here on Thursday morning, and had them delivered in the very early hours of Friday (5am!) by the ever-so-genial Steve, in his special service for London residents who don't want to take the day off work to wait for the courier. I did actually order three, but the biggest one is so unbelievably big in the flesh that it has to go back. We had measured for it, but even so, it dominates the room. I could get in there with my stash, and sleep all cosy and warm, but hardly practical otherwise. I'll trade it in for some smaller flight cases for my fibre stash. By the way, the WIPs are the bags on top, the top trunk of those two is nearly full of sock yarn, and the bottom one is everything else, again almost full. Oh dear. Must stop buying yarn (except for the Wollmeise I scored in yesterday's update, hoorah). Another reason not to attend next year's Ally Pally, perhaps?