We would like to say a HUGE thank you to all of the shops who signed up for Sew Saturday on 15th October, and those who attended events and activities on the day. With more than 217 stores signed up to the big day – and more still rushing to sign up – the day was a bigger success than we could have ever hoped for.

Share your day with us!
What did you do on the day? We’d love for you to share your photos with us, so we can see what you got up to – whether you attended an event or put on a programme of activities yourself! There are also THREE SEW SATURDAY AWARDS up for grabs, so it’s a great chance for participating stores to gain the recognition they deserve. Nominate your favourite on Facebook, Twitter or by emailing jennifer.ward@aceville.co.uk – the categories are:

Best Workshop
Best Window Display
Best for Inspiration

As well as a certificate that the winning shops can display proudly in their store, each winner will receive £50 of books from crafty books specialists Search Press.

Here are just some of the Sew Saturday antics that took place… make sure you share yours!

Franklins in Colchester
Editor Jennifer and Deputy Editor Mel visited local fabric and sewing store Franklins for a day packed with stitchy fun! We had a FREE prize raffle, tea and a cake, special offers and discounts, plus LOTS of workshops to make Buttons the Cat.

Guthrie-Ghani, Birmingham
Sew columnist Lauren Guthrie had a full studio in her sewing shop Guthrie-Ghani, buzzing with sewing chatter and like-minded people coming together to share their enthusiasm for all things sewing, with cake and tea and homemade lemonade on tap! As well as make & takes, there was a full programme of demonstrations with tips on everything from pressing gadgets to dart manipulation. Read Lauren’s blog post about the day here.

Ditto Fabrics, East Sussex
Jade Earley, AKA The Girl With The Bright Red Hair from the latest series of the Sewing Bee, was at Ditto Fabrics along with Kat Neeser, who gave a talk on tissue fitting, and author Wendy Ward – who discussed her new book A Beginner’s Guide to Making Skirts. Their day was a HUGE success!

The Stitchery, East Sussex
The Stitchery had Lucinda Guy and Francois Hall, author and illustrator of Kids Learn to Stitch at the shop, signing books and meeting visitors! They were giving away FREE starter kits so you could make one of the book’s fun felt projects, and had lots of Buttons the cat workshops.

Just some of the MANY Buttons the cat

Lots of Buttons were made at The Stitchery!

Buttons was at Abakhan, along with a Q&A with Deborah Simms of Sewing Bee series 3.

Younger ones made Buttons the Cat at the School of Sewing!

A purr-fect group of Buttons at Sew and Fabric in St Austell, Cornwall.

... And there was CAKE!

An AMAZING stitchy cake at Sew Creative.

Delicious cupcakes at Millie Moon Shop.

Cakes and stitchy fun at Create Escape – yum!

Again, we’d like to thank EVERYBODY who made this year’s Sew Saturday special – it wouldn’t be possible without the support of sewing shops around the UK and Ireland, their loyal customers, and our beloved Sew readers. Now the countdown begins until next year’s Sew Saturday!