Birmingham meet up

What a day.  As usual I caught an earlier train than I needed to get to Birmingham.  Although I was booked on the 0943 and did not need to be at St Pancras until 0900 I was there at 0800.  I walked to Euston from St Pancras and passed this as I did so.

  Pretty funky for a bank eh!

When I got to  Euston I checked with the rather surly information man if I could upgrade my ticket and without a smile he told me that the tickets were non transferable.   So I kicked back my heels for a while and had a coffee in the multi lounge they have set up there and did some people watching which is always very interesting in London.

The journey from London to St Pancras was uneventful and speedy.  I arrived at Birmingham New Street Station, and after checking in with Claire http://sew-incidentally.blogspot.co.uk we met up with Rachel of  http://layerstitchrepeat.blogspot.co and proceeded to Barry's fabrics.

Now I had had a chat with myself in the morning, that I do not need anymore fabric to add to my already overflowing stash, but (and I know I am not alone in this) when you are confronted with this!

 all thoughts of self denial fly out of the window, and this is only 1/4 of the shop, if that.

But I was very restrained, I only bought this:

 and this

after drooling over the beautiful fabric in this fabulous shop, we decided that we had better listen to our rumbling stomachs (mine was anyway by this point) and get some food.

A table had been booked up for us at Cafe Soya, where the food is plentiful, tasty and cheap and just as importantly the tables are not packed in like sardines. Over much regaling of sewing adventures and  hilarious child rearing anecdotes with Jo of http://theamazingtaracat.wordpress. and Louise http://threadcarefully.wordpress.com. We (me) ate till stuffed and then we astounded the rest of the very busy restaurant by pulling out what seemed like a mountain of fabric and patterns over the two large tables and proceeded to swap our hearts out.

We then went to the rag market, aided by the maps prepared for us by Kat http://akraftykat.blogspot.co and Marie http://www.stitchingoddyssey.com.
Where amongst other bits and bobs I bought this

Then to The Fancy Silk Store

Again this is only maybe 1/2 of the downstairs of the shop, apparently there are 2 or 3 more floors, I was too tired to investigate this.

Where I bought my find of the day

How could I leave without it?

And, finally, exhausted to the Birmingham New Street Station where we ended the day with much hugging and promises to meet up again soon.

All in all a fabulous day, and much thanks to Claire, Kat and Marie for arranging and organising a herd of chatty dressmaking, crafting women around a well fabric stocked and busy city.