I met velosewer!

I took last Friday off from work because a very special Aussie was coming to the Big City...


It's Velosewer Maria, from the blog How Good is That!

We hit 7 fabric or notions stores in 8 hours, plus lunch and doughnuts....quite a whirlwind!!  and we both wore outfits made by our own hands...my McCall's 6078 shirt and J Stern Design Jeans and her peplum Vogue 8815 top and purple Vogue 1204 jeans (I remembered the purple jeans from her blog!)  The topstitching on her jeans is superb!

We made Metro Textiles our first stop, as you know it is a sewing blogger rite of passage to have one's pic taken with Kashi.  Plus I haven't seen Kashi since May 2012.  Definitely time to revisit.

And while we were there, we met another Kashi customer, Barbara, who asked us how we know Kashi....that led to the discovery that we are all on PR!  We had such a nice time time shopping and chatting with Barbara, who makes jackets to sell.

The shirt I was wearing was made from the fabric that was on Kashi's mannequin on the Friday of PR weekend.  That was the fabric that was less than a yard!!!!

I really enjoyed listening to Maria banter with Kashi and teasing him...


Of course he wants you all to know that he has new fabrics and wants you to come visit him.  And if you've never been to Metro, the background of these pix really give you a sense of the store!

We did really well there.  Keep in mind, Maria has to haul all this fabric back to Australia!

The haul from Kashi

Honestly, every day is a sale day at Metro!
Here is my haul from Kashi's (I had it shipped; it was on my doorstep on Tuesday):

Then it was time for MOOD.

Sadly, Swatch took the day off due to threat of rain and wouldn't be back til Monday.


Antoinette, this is the remnant bin at Mood, under the staircase, but it was mostly Home Dec:

We were able to meet up with Meg who works in marketing for Mood, and she took this picture of our Mood hauls.  Meg is the original author of the Shop the Garment District blog, which Mimi took over when Meg started working at Mood.  The map and info on that blog is excellent--the map gives store addresses, phone numbers, and even indicates which stores have bathrooms!

In the mood foyer:

ha

Here is what I bought at Mood (I had it shipped; it was on my doorstep on Monday).  That bottom piece is the most luxurious piece of stretch corduroy ever, from Alice + Olivia.

Then it was time for the big reveal at lunch! The 7 hour zipper pouch!!

It turns out that the interior fabric is her favorite color, a bright green! Woot! That just happened to be what I chose from my stash.

Maria had gifted me with Tim Tams from Australia ( a quite delicious chocolate cookie covered in chocolate with a layer of chocolate between the chocolate cookies, yes, chocolate chocolate chocolate!) and she asked me to hold up my bag:

Maria had her first ever mac and cheese at one of my favorite Chelsea restaurants, named Cafeteria. Then we went to my favorite doughnut place in the whole world, Doughnut Plant.

Then it was kind of a rapid succession of stores: City Quilter, Pacific Trimming, SIL Thread, then Maria went to Spandex House while I went to Daytona, then we reconvened at Parone.

Pacific Trimming zippers

One of my main goals was to get cotton lining, zipper and thread to match these fabrics from Joanns and Kaimuki:

zippers and thread: SIL Thread
Lining: Parone

Here was much of my haul:



I have already made something from the items above, but that will be my next post.

I bought more of that cat fabric that I originally got at Kaimuki, online from a local (NJ) seller....and happened to find webbing to match for bag making (I didn't even know I wanted webbing to match, but I did when I saw it!):

webbing: Pacific Trimming

This is the fabric from Parone:

I had brought swatches of various with me, so I could find linings and thread to match.

I had a fantastically fun time with Maria. She is warm and witty and caring and kind. I'm so happy I was able to meet her!!  Like I said, for the past 18 months or so she has commented on almost every blog post of mine--that is dedication!

And I am planning on doing a post devoted to my favorite NYC places...in the next few weeks, so stay tuned.

Here are your Princeton Farmer's Market flowers for this week:

Maria, I wish we were going to the Garment District again this Friday!
Be well!