Fabric

Even though she's not nearly as fabric crazy as I am, my friend Sharon decided that my fabric shopping agenda was not going to be too much for her and came along to Vancouver. The drive was absolutely gorgeous both ways with sunshine and clear skies and the changing colors of fall.

We were wandering along the street in Gastown when this sign jumped out at me. Naturally.

The dress code was somewhat more extreme than I'm used to but hey - if you want two piece of ID to let me shop, fine with me but... unfortunately....  LOL... Fabric is a....

NIGHTCLUB! Go figure. Great name aside, it didn't sound like our kind of place.

A few blocks up was Button Button. It's a small shop on Homer Street just around the corner from Dress Sew at 337 West Hastings Street. Although it's hard to see in the picture, the purple buttons are two tone. I'm not sure what they're made of. The brown ones are horn and are part of a Christmas present for my friend Caroline who can't read blogs at her office and doesn't use a computer at home. Posting them is safe - LOL. She LOVES buttons.

My goal going to Vancouver was to find some nice knits, ones that I couldn't find at home. Other than knits, I don't actually need - or want to buy - fabric. My stash is pretty full and I'm trying to sew it down a bit before my holiday next year. This was a gap filling shopping trip. But...

... the prices surprised me. They were higher than expected although there was a better selection than here at home. I went with a list. Black for t-shirts. Colors for t-shirts. White flannel for my design wall. Some kind of baby blanket fabric. I had trouble filling the list.

Colors were especially difficult. If I liked the color, it seemed that I didn't like the knit and if I liked the knit, it seemed that I didn't like the available colors. I bought black, grey, turquoise, and purple which are not at all earth shatteringly different than normal. The fabrics above are from Dress Sew - all rayon polyester spandex blends. They are two way stretch and relatively stable with a nice hand and when draped didn't appear to hug the body.

The two fold over elastics are also from Dress Sew. I've never worked with this notion before so I'll need to Google the how-to. The 4" wide stretch lace is for lingerie. It was $2.69 a meter which is incredibly cheap for stretch lace and came from Fabricana where I also bought....

... the black wool jersey knit at left, a turquoise wool jersey knit, a black modal knit, the white flannel, and a black rayon polyester spandex ribbed sweater knit. And entered a draw. For four days, three nights in Toronto, $500 spending money, and private lessons with a sewing diva - not sure who but I'm in. I've been saving points to fly to San Francisco, New York, and Toronto. I almost have enough for the first trip.

The trip was fun, a much needed break, and now I'm glad to be home and back in the studio. While away, I decided to piece the orange black fabric into a different garment and start over on the coat/cardigan with the other color - lemon lime and black - to make something for myself. Whenever the next BMV sale comes up, I'll order Vogue 8346 for the graceful flared lines since that's the part I loved the most about the orange black experience.

SewRuthie - I agree that the light panel seems too large. I was planning for the collar to be dark, multi-layered, and drapey and that may have helped. In hindsight, it would have been better to have a darker waistband in that section and to run the dark line from top to bottom at center front. It's all something to consider for version two. Thanks for the feedback.

Talk soon - Myrna

Grateful - a fun and safe trip, a variety of knit fabric to try