A few months ago I had emailed Simplicity in regards to sponsoring a possible sewing challenge (watch this space!) and then received an email kindly inviting me to a meet of sewing bloggers in Manchester. 

I’d never been to anything like this so had no idea what to expect, and it sounded quite different from the lovely Yorkshire Spoolettes meet I went to back in February. I searched through Twitter using #TheBigSimplicityMeet and found a couple of people I ‘knew’ a little from blogs and social media, but there wasn’t really anyone I was in regular contact with. Unperturbed, I got up early yesterday and headed cross country to the given location ready for an 11am start. 

Upon arrival I was relieved to immediately find several other people who hadn’t been to a similar event before and had all come individually: it wasn’t just me. Coffee was available and the room was above a bar/restaurant in a very pretty area off Deansgate. I took a seat and chatted a little with two nearby bloggers, Georgia and Lisa. 

May Martin was leading the workshop and she demonstrated several techniques on both the overlocker and a sewing machine, interwoven with a constant stream of tips and tricks for saving time and achieving a better finish. She was so knowledgeable and passionate yet warm and friendly. 

At 1pm we broke for tea and cake, which was stunning – we were very spoilt.

During the lunch break we were invited to help ourselves to various piles of patterns, current issues of sewing magazines and goody bags. 

We also asked May if she would mind posing for a photo. After lunch was a Q+A session with May and more demonstrations including the quickest invisible zip insertion! The day wrapped up around 3.30pm, and I managed to say hello to a couple more people which was lovely, and exchanged IG names and Twitter handles with a couple more. 

All in all it was such a nice and relaxing day centred around all things sewing. I met some lovely people who I look forward to keeping in touch with. Oh, and did I mention how generous Simplicity were with the freebies?!