Saturday, May 11, 2013

Finally! My Pattern Review 2013 San Francisco Recap


view from my hotel room at the Marine's Memorial Club
View from my hotel room

Finally darlings, it's the Pattern Review 2013 San Francisco Recap, Kyle style.

Thursday:  Dinner and registration.  Sadly I took no pix but I finally got to meet PR member marec who has commented on so many of my pattern reviews.  Very cool to meet her and meet some new folks too, plus catch up with my PR conference peeps.

Friday: Vogue Fit Goddess Sandra Betzina spent much of the day talking about fit. Of note, you don't have to make a muslin of the whole garment, just your "problem fitting" area.  Interesting.
me and Sandra Betzina!
Me in McCall's 6078 and J Stern Design Jeans, with Fit Goddess Sandra Betzina

Loved that Sandra brought muslins of a shirt, a Chanel jacket and her Craftsy pants in all sizes.  I learned the size C Chanel jacket fits with really no alterations, and the C pants fit well in the butt and waist (say what??  that's awesome!) and just need to be taken in a little at the hip.

Here's one of the many pattern exchange tables:

another table of patterns
I brought 19 patterns. Broke my promise to not take any but I only took one; the Colette Clover pattern. I could not resist a $20 pattern that I was planning on buying!
the pattern exchange table
Lunch was with Rose in SV (so happy to see her again!), SunnyGal Beth (so excited to finally meet her and tell her how I love her invisible zip tutorial. Plus she provided loads of Oahu recommendations!), Neefer (so nice to meet you) and moi with my stitched-at-the-last-minute "Keep Calm and Sew On" bag.
Rose in SV; Beth from SunnyGal, Neefer and me at lunch
We had fun with the step and repeat.
me and Bonnie
me and Bonnie

Jacqui and Deepika in the new PR downloadable pattern, Summer Street Dress
Jacqui and Deepika in the PR downloadable Summer Street Dress 
Fri night was the big group dinner out.  There were loads of raffles.  Look at what Elnora won!
Elnora and the Jalie pattern she won
Yes, we walked back to the hotel with Elnora's new pattern peeking up out of her bag the whole time.

Saturday: Saturday we broke off into smaller groups for shopping. Jacqui and the knit section
Jacqui tears into the knits aisle at Stone Mountain.
Like Lee mentioned in her recap, I too suddenly had the urge to see Stone Mountain and Daughter fabrics after Sandra Betzina mentioned the store every few minutes on Saturday. Marci drove a carful of us out there!   Thank you Marci!

Thankfully that was our first stop, and was several other carfuls first stops as well.
me and Lee
Lee and I had a nice chat in line. My cord jacket is Simplicity 2508. 

Here was the line.
the line at Stone Mountain
This was the only fabric I bought in SF, for which I was very proud.
some fabric I bought at Stone Mountain

Amity (who had so many nice things to say about my blog!) and her Minoru jacket
Amity and her Sewaholic Minrou jacket

me and Deepika, founder of Pattern Review
Me and Deepika, founder of Pattern Review
Claudine and me:  the only two peeps from NJ?
Me and Claudine, I think we were the only Jersey girls in attendance.
Next we hit up Discount Fabrics:
at discount fabrics
This is where they had $2.98 denim!
$2.98 denim (look for the green dot!) at Discount Fabrics
But I was pacing myself and didn't buy anything.
Janice, Marci, me, Jacqui and Connie
We had lunch in Berkeley; Janice, Marci, me, Jacqui, and Connie.
Then we went to Lacis which is a museum and supply shop.
is this spiral steel boning?  at Lacis
This is what I bought at Lacis:

gadgets from Lacis
But Lacis had all sorts of things, including "heads" for making hats.
Jackie and her head (for hats)
Then over to Blue Moon where I didn't buy anything, then Fabrix, where I bought zippers that were 25 cents each. I thought the metal zips were a great bargain, and would be good for when I finally get around to making zipper pouches.
zippers 25 cents each


And then there was Britex.  It was my sixth fabric store of the day, with four floors of fabric with prices in the luxury range (like, $49, $79, $99 a yard, and UP. Elizabeth said she saw fabric there for $249 a yard.  Two hundred forty nine dollars!  a yard!).

At that point, I was fabric fatigued. as usual. I was also feeling quite smug. I had only bought 15.75 yards in SF. But now that I have concluded my grand fabric tour of Hawaii and California, and add the numbers: 15.75 Stone Mtn and Daughter in SF
9.00 Kaimuki Dry Goods in Honolulu with MushyWear
9.50 Gwen Couture in SD with SEWN
2.50 at Discount Fabrics in SD with SEWN
The total = 36.75 yards.

Sigh. Still better than 47+1 free yard  in NYC last year.

Thank you to Bonnie, Connie, Kathy R and Deepika, and all volunteers who made it such a great weekend!

PR weekend is in Austin next year May 2-4, I totally encourage you to attend!  Start saving and planning now.  TexStyles (and Leslie in Austin) will make sure we have a blast.  I guarantee it.

Other resources:
PR weekend 2013 Flickr pool

My recap of PR weekend 2012 NYC
My recap of PR Day 2011 Austin
My recap of PR weekend 2011 Chicago
My recap of PR weekend 2010 Philly

10 comments:

  1. Looks like you had a great time! The dates for PR Austin are going on the calendar. Leslie is a hoot!

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  2. Oh, you are back from your travels! This is a nice recap of the PR Weekend, and some great shots. I was wonderful to meet you face to face...I look forward to seeing you in Austin :-) budget permitting.

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  3. What a WONDERFUL trip! Would love to make one of these sometime.

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  4. When I was looking at upholstery fabric to re-do my chair, I saw fabrics in the 298 dollar a yard range. OMG.

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  5. What a fantastic recap! I too am going to put the dates for next years PR Weekend on my calendar. I hope I can make it. Glad you had such a wonderful vacation!

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  6. what a great recap. It was great to meet you as well. I never go to Lacis but now that I see they have all those supplies I guess I will stop by soon.

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  7. Great recap! I love the view from your hotel room.

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  8. Thanks for sharing your SF trip Kyle. I'll keep my fingers crossed that you Hawaii fabric arrives very, very soon.

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  9. Thank you for the recap! You do it so well! So many familiar faces! I hope I can make it to Austin.

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  10. It was delightful meeting you, too. Your pictures of the shopping are fabulous; I'm kinda sorry that I missed it. I hope we meet up again.

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