What a delight it was to be at the Quilt Fayre in the Stormont Hotel in Belfast! After such a long Covid drought of shopping and chatting all things sewing in the like-minded company of others – it felt quite magical.

For us, it was just the start of what was to be a whole weekend of stitching overload, but this was a pretty good warm-up act to get us started. Broomsticks at the ready, we were in situ for the doors opening and received our welcome goody bags. First on the right in the main hall were our friends and supporters, Fiddlesticks Fabrics, and we dropped off a pile of Q4CL info packs of our own into their safe custody and then couldn’t decide where to feast our eyes.

Wands aloft to Margaret, Yvonne and Helen – this was well organised and had a suitable balance of goodies for all. It was lovely not to be in a real scrum at the stalls because it gave us time to chat, look and ponder our way around. Chief Stitch could have wallowed in books all morning, but there were credit cards positively tingling to be used.

So, the Witches went with a plan. A quick scout of what was where and a cursory look at all the goodies on offer. We exchanged some banter with the poor gentleman manning the entrance to the business centre (wouldn’t be us if we didn’t), and we checked out those stalls too. Whilst others were partaking of morning coffee and relaxed delights; we were Witches on a Mission. New cutting blades were an absolute must. Boring, I know, but the previous week had been a cutting frenzy of the Postcard from Sweden variety, and with heading into a quilting weekend with them’uns across the water, Chief Stitch may require sharp implements, that’s all I’m saying…

The eye of Chief Witch was taken with some lovely Donegal Tweeds, and we asked Margaret Lee to keep aside a Granda’s Shirt quilt kit to collect later.

“Oh, I hope I remember who you are”, she worried, and in tuneful chorus, we chimed

“Witches in Stitches, you’ll not forget us!”. Oh dear!

This led to “Do you do demonstrations?” ……..

“What… US? Eeerrrr… NO! – We do have a light-hearted blog though.” 😊

One of the lovely things about the morning was that we ran into a few familiar faces, some of whom we had only previously met on Zoom. Sometimes it’s hard to recognise people without their fab kitchen wallpaper as a background – sorry Judy! We also bumped into a couple of other long-armers who then told us of some fabric that was looking for a new home and we were dispatched to chat to Yvonne of Quilters Quest who had a stand for her SewEzi portable sewing tables.

And then, all good things and all that…….well, that is to say, we were on a bit of a timetable since there was a ferry to catch that same evening, for the Quilt Fayre was only our warm-up act this year. Oh, and by the way, we did hear a wee rumour that a very special sewing celebrity may be gracing these shores at the Quilt Fayre next year, so I think we’ll all be booking our tickets very quickly for that one.

Now, for the rest of the weekend shenanigans, you’ll have to wait for the next instalment…

Happy Stitchin’