Monday, September 13, 2010

Metropolitan Dream Week 2010 - day 1 (Monday)

I arrived at the hotel in Crewe at 10am, and had already checked in and settled down to make fast friends and grab a coffee before Mark arrived from Metropolitan with the personalised programmes.

I got a personalised schedule based on the seminars I picked beforehand. There was also a Silver Reed biro (three colours!), a little notepad and a name badge to fill in, all in a lovely pink folder. The schedule pack included tear-off strips to book your lunch (sandwiches, salad, or jacket potato) and tear-off strips to vote for the best garment of the day (which gets you a free tea or coffee - who says bribery doesn't work?!). There were nine slots in all (and I'd only booked 6 plus two extra) so it meant there was another slot free - I picked the third Susan G workshop, so got to do all three in the end. Even then, I could have happily done more workshops - there just isn't the time in the week, alas! :)

I grabbed some lunch at the hotel, and then the coach arrived to take us to Metropolitan for the opening lecture, given by Susan Guagliumi. It's pronounced Gual-you-me, but I still have trouble spelling it. She gave an excellent talk about her past history knitting and working as a representative for White, Passap and later Knitmaster. She also showed us the garments that appear in her latest book, "More Hand-manipulated Stitches for Machine Knitters".

Picture 041
(Susan G and Carol)

We went back to the hotel - I discovered that there was free wifi in our hotel rooms, so it meant I could have a voice chat with the Cog undisturbed. The food at the hotel was excellent - a four course meal every night. Monday's entertainment was an Elvis lookalike. I was ground zero on our table in terms of the speakers, so I ducked out early! He was quite a good singer, but was definitely impersonating Elvis in his later years!

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