Male Pattern Boldness Day & Clever Girl Visit recap (mega post)

I don't know what was more shocking, the fact that I didn't buy any fabric or that I ran for my life at Male Pattern Boldness Day 2012.  (Peter Lappin's account of his day is here).

Let's go in chronological order, shall we?

I was really lucky to see Antoinette again this weekend.  Ms Clever Girl herself flew up from Austin to Baltimore then took Amtrak when her flight was canceled. I was SO happy to see her again--she is so fun to hang out with!  As her b-day is later this month, I got her a vegan cake from Whole Foods.


The next morning we took the bus to NYC.
 

Here she is in her green scallop shorts she recently sewed. Aren't they super cute???

We strolled down Fashion Ave with our luggage and checked into our hotel, then made our way over to the FIT Museum to meet up with Mr. Male Pattern Boldness himself. Peter is a prompt man in the way that tri-state living demands. I think we got there at 11:02 and the event had already begun!

Peter and his amazing toile jeans.
He's a real person!



We went around the circle and introduced ourselves while Peter took roll.

Here's Antoinette, Mike from Sydney, Australia, and Cindy from Brooklyn.


Unfortunately we were not allowed to take pix in the museum itself. Peter instructed us not to touch anything and not to try anything on.  (He is as humorous in person as he is on his blog!)

The exhibit was small and the room was dark, but the fashion was thought provoking and interesting. When someone leaned over an invisible barrier in front of the clothing, an alarm sounded to keep us in check. The alarm was going off every few minutes!

Antoinette and I met Nicole, who was fun to chat with (and later gave us her MetroCard with money remaining on it--thank you Nicole!), and we headed over to the student Barbie exhibit across the street, where flash photography was allowed.


By then it was, I don't know, 11:40 or so? So the three of us headed over early to the Brown Cup, our designated lunch space, and got a jump on the crowd.

While we were waiting, Peter's partner Michael came in and I said, "It's Michael!"   When the rest of the group joined us, most recognized him by his shirt which Peter had sewn for him.

Here's the scene at the Brown Cup.  This is one of the two rows of tables the group occupied.


As with sewing blogging royalty, I clammed up when I had an opportunity to ask him anything I wanted, and yet I froze and asked him a softball question. I similarly clammed up when I was next to Renee from Miss Celie's Pants at PR weekend Philly 2010 while waiting for fabric remnants to be measured. The opportunity of a lifetime, wasted. However, I really enjoyed the conversation around me, especially Mike from Australia, who could have his own reality show as far as I'm concerned.

Anyway, one thing I am not shy about is asking for pix so here we are outside the Brown Cup:

Then we headed off to conquer the fabric that awaited us:

The group split into two: high-end starting at Mood and low-end starting, er, elsewhere.

At this point Antoinette and I broke off from the groups.
First we went to Pacific Trimming and I bought more elastic and some trims, and also the funky red buckles.

I love Pacific Trimming so much I could live there, although the lack of store air conditioning is a problem. This time I found the snaps and button section, which I was oblivious to in my prior trips, but didn't buy any of those. 

Next we headed to SIL Thread where I wanted to stock up on invisible zips, both 8" and 22" size, and a regular metal zip for that Jalie half zip fleece.  Guess how many zips are in this picture!

They also had these pieces of yellow and orange tailor's crayon.

Here is one row of boxes of invisible zips, the 22" size I think...I mean, if you can't find the perfect match....though I did have trouble finding the white and black zips, which were in a section all of their own...


Next we went to Mood. I had a "family reunion" with my fabric (credit for that joke goes to whoever came up with that caption when Bonnie was wearing a top made from fabric on the bolt at The Common Thread in Austin during PR Day Austin 2011).  I wrote several posts as I made this dress, the last of which is here.


Here's Antoinette waiting in line.  Mood was pretty crowded.



At this point I wanted to go to the chocolate bar to have some iced chocolate and also some ice water.  I was getting kind of tired and sleepy.   Mood is near 37th and 7th, but we went out the back way through 38th.  So we were at the intersection of 38th and 7th and waiting for the light to change.  Antoinette says "what is going on there" and I look up 7th toward 39th (where the big button and needle statue is) and there is a crowd of cops walking/jogging down the street, towards us.   I don't think I've seen that many cops in person ever. It was like they were a line across 7th ave coming down the street.   There was a car backing down the street and a guy in a white shirt and jeans facing the cops, jogging/running backward, away from the cops, right behind the car. I'm trying to figure out what is going on.   Why is the car backing up?  Why is that guy running backwards behind the car? Then Antoinette says "he's got a gun" and I said something like "what?" and she repeats "he's got a gun" and I said, "let's get out of here" and run back down 38th.   I stop when we get to this part on 38th where there's an alcove and we look back at the intersection and see the line of cops going by.  She says what do you want to do?  I said, it looks like they're past us now we could go to the chocolate shop and then that's when we hear the gunshots--as it turns out the man was killed closer to 37th but at that point I didn't know really where the cops were.   So we run down the street to Pacific Trimming again and waited for a bit (where she joked, "you had to choose the hottest store to take refuge in?"), and then we decide to go to the choc cafe in an indirect route... it's across from Bryant Park.  So at this point I was very much awake! (Then later we see the pictures online and the cell phone video back in the hotel room, and read some news stories, and it turned out the man had a knife. There is a news story here which also has video--you can hear the shots fired.  )

After resting at the choc cafe we went to a Japanese bookstore named Kinokuniya that has a lot of neat sewing books and ultra-cute Japanese merch, and saw some of the bloggers there. There were signs about not taking pix of the books, so I don't have pix of the store, but I did buy this book:

Oh, and I bought some cute stickers too which I didn't take a picture of.

Then the last stop of the day was Bryant Park to meet up with the group for a recap and to say our goodbyes.

Thank you to Peter for arranging the day so nicely!!  It was a real pleasure to finally get to meet you--thank you for being a great host and a great blogger!!!

I did not buy any fabric, perhaps because I bought 47 yards during PR weekend NYC 2012 and I have only sewn 2 yards of it.......

Antoinette and I continued on to our 6pm dinner reservation at Cafeteria restaurant in Chelsea.

My dinner:

That mac and cheese is fantastic!
Antoinette's dinner:


On Sunday, reenergized and refreshed, we went to the "Foods of NY Tours" Greenwich Village tour.

Here is Antoinette (in a dress she recently made) with Amy, who graciously arranged for the tix for us, and Antoinette shared one with me--thank you!

And here we are, y'all recognize my skirt, right?

Here is Bert, our tour guide, who was incredibly knowledgeable about food and the area. The guy is a real hoot

Pizza from Joe's pizza:

Amy's Bread and olive oil from O and Co (along with a huge amt of knowledge about olive oil!)

Cavolfiore Palma at Palma--yum!

Pizza at Pizza Roma:


A sampling at Centro Vinotecha

A yummy chocolate chip oatmeal cookie from Milk and Cookies:
We also had cheese and olives at another place and a cannoli at our last stop. In between stops we learned about the history, architecture, and high cost of housing in the Village.  We were on the lookout for celebrity sightings but alas, no famous people.

After our 3 hour tour ended, with our bellies full, Antoinette and I made our way to Purl Soho.

There I bought sashiko needles and thread, a felting needle and also a book:

Then we hit up several clothing stores in succession, including the Number 6 store, Uniqlo, and Zara.
We found the storefront for Built By Wendy, but only the sign remained:

We walked past Emmett McCarthy's store, PR alum from season, er, 2 maybe?

And stopped at Christian Siriano's store

One of his fierce gowns was on display

Then we took the subway over to Doughnut Plant so I could pick up some more blackout doughnuts to munch on during the week.

Then we parted ways and I came back home on the bus.
I have today and tmw off to recover from all the excitement. Buddy is staying with me.

I think he's enjoying his "summer camp in the suburbs" as there are plenty of squirrels, birds and even cicadas to keep him entertained (when he's looking outside.  He's an indoor-only cat....)

Check out my pumpkin's amazing progress!  There are more female blooms budding up!!



And last but not least, lisianthus from the Princeton Farmer's Market (they're not roses, they just look like it)

Congrats if you made it to the end of this posting!
Be well and be safe!!!