I am back from EXPO; it was amazing but I am quite tired now. Especially because at the eleventh hour I decided, in my preparations for the show, to embark on some fairly major make and do last-minute operations.

I decided, for instance, that our custom-made Spoonflower Mundane Objects fabric ought to be turned into tea-towels with mitered corners, and that attending EXPO without such tea-towels would just be unacceptable. So I found a really excellent online binding tutorial over at Posie gets Cosy and made these:

I made 2 tablecloths, 4 tea-towels and 3 neck scarves with J-cloth on one side and our custom-made fabric on the other. I also couldn’t resist mischievously making J-cloth bunting. I am very excited to sort of know about mitered corners now, as the untidy corners on many things I’ve sewn have bothered me in the past! It is a bit like kitchener stitch in knitting; one of those detailed techniques that allows me to finish things to a satisfyingly high level of loveliness. It does take some time though!

The fabric features items we also have on fridge-magnets. People won the fridge magnets from us at EXPO when they impersonated the sounds of the objects on the fridge magnets. I have many vocal impressions of irons and washing-machines collected up from EXPO now! One of my favourite activities in quiet moments on Friday night and Saturday day, was arranging the magnets on top of the fabric like this:

There is something very pleasing about lending the fabric print a 3-D quality in this way. I love the drawings Kayla from Mundane Appreciation did for these magnets and how simply and beautifully they celebrate such ordinary items as computers, scissors, irons, washing-machines and the like. The way the fabric makes me feel – and the magnets – is a bit like when I see ordinary items recreated in knitting.

The other last-minute craziness was the 3am on Friday night cake-baking marathon I undertook in Brighton, staying at my friend’s house. I got icing printed up with our show logo and decided the show on Saturday would just be so massively enhanced by the presence of these customised cakes, that I couldn’t possible *not* make them. So at 3am on Saturday morning, this is what my friend’s kitchen looked like:

It was slightly insane but – I think you’ll agree – also totally worth it.

We talked about tea, washing-up, irritating noises and many other topics during the weekend, had much tequila and beer on Saturday night, and got heavily rained on on Sunday morning. We all came home with recorders full of stash for show 3 and some sleep debt. The thing I most enjoyed at EXPO, was playing ‘Try to name the object situation or location beginning with the letter on the spinner from only the sound.’ The spinner made everyone laugh, which was gratifying, and people had a lot of fun guessing what the sounds were. Now I just have to figure out where the spinner is going to live now the show is done…