I wonder if there are any UK members in this group ?
We recently started a mailing list with meet-ups for people interested in electronic textiles, soft circuits and wearables. It grew out of London Hackspace (https://london.hackspace.org.uk/) and MzTek (http://www.mztek.org/) so it's primarily london based, but other hackspaces have similar interests and are in all areas of the country.
The mailiing list is at https://groups.google.com/group/london-threads-space?hl=en
(If you haven't heard of hackspaces before, don't worry - they've very little to do with the media's idea of "hackers". Hackers are people that make things - perhaps with computers, perhaps with metal, wood, fabric, paint, or all those things together - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackerspace).
-adrian