Give Aways at The Fabricologist

As you all know, I love fabric. I buy fabric from all over, all the local stores and online stores. So it's always fun to hear about a new place that sells what I hoard collect.

The really cool thing about writing this blog article is that I know Amy who owns The Fabricologist. I've been going to quilt retreat for maybe four years now and that's where I first met Amy. I'm very excited to see what she'll be selling and sharing on her blog. Amy doesn't know this, but early in the mornings, I walk around the sewing room while at retreat and I can leisurely look at everyone's projects. I'm also love sewing machines so I love to look at all the different machines. Well, back to my story, I always linger just a little bit longer at Amy's table because she is always doing something unique. Her quilts are spectacular, she has an excellent eye for color and pattern combinations, and she always comes really cool patterns, books or magazines. I highly recommend following Amy's blog because I'm sure she'll be showing some great projects in the future.

Now for the good part, look at all this sweet stuff that The Fabricologist is giving away.

 How Euro trendy is this pattern? If you do as much surfing as I do, you know the woodland creatures are very big. Hedgehogs are also big in the machine embroidery world.

 A sewing book with patterns is always a good thing. Kay Whitt's books are highly rated which makes this doubly good.

 Have you jumped on the handbag wagon yet? I've started to do my research but could use a good book to get me started.

 Everyone needs a snap setter if you do any kind of sewing, quilting or crafting. So easy to use.

 Fabric? Yes please.

I'm kind of lusting after that "Walk in the Woods" charm pack.

Ok, I showed you the goods. Now go out and enter for yourself! Use her blog link up above to enter. Hurry up because The Fabricologist will be drawing for winners this coming Monday. Make sure you check out the website, http://www.fabricologist.com/.

I Need Someone To Blame

 Who is responsible for forcing me to buy all this stuff? My friend Yvonne went shopping with me two days in a row. I guess she's it. Day One was my fault. Day Two is Yvonne's. Yvonne had asked if I was interested in driving to Madison for the Library book sale and to check up on our college kids. I told her I would but I brought up a fabric/Viking shop that was closing it's doors two hours away. So on Friday we drove two hours north. I came home with two feet for my machine, two patterns, a little bit of cotton lace and some fabric.

Day Two. You didn't think we'd just stop at a book sale did you? Saturday, we went two hours to the west of us. That lead us to two quilt shops. I mistakenly believed I wouldn't be buying anything because I didn't need anything. Hah! I came. I spent. All fabric.

The greens and oranges are perfect for fall appliques.

You can never have enough polka dots. They go with everything.

I love this cow fabric. You can't live in America's Dairyland and not love cow fabric.

 

I needed this fabric like I needed a hole in the head. I have no need to make a baby quilt. On Day One, I see this  charm pack. It's called Little Rascals from Moda. I haven't heard of that particular line. Oh well, it was 25% off. I came home and looked it up and thought it must be an older line because so few online shops had carried it. When we stopped into JJ Stitches in Sun Prairie, there it was, about 15 bolts of fabric in this line. My $7.00 charm pack ended up costing me about $50.00. I guess it saved me from ordering online.

Stop Four, Mood!

 "Designers, you have 10 minutes!" OMG, I felt that Tim Gunn was in Mood with me, yelling how much time I had left to shop. This was our last stop before lunch. I had roughly 50-60 minutes before we met Lauren. I felt like one of the Project Runway designers as I raced through Mood. How can you get through three floors of fabric goodness in such a small amount of time? I knew what I was getting into since I wasn't a Mood virgin but still, it had been about eight years since my last visit.

I knew what I didn't need. I didn't need denim, wool, suitings, special occassion fabrics or home dec fabrics. I ran upstairs to take a look and immediately came back to the main floor. This is where the action was. I have to say, Mood has a large staff. I can't tell you how many employees were on just the second floor helping customers.

There is a small table in the front of the store near the bouncer. Yes, there's a fabric bouncer at the front door! You do need to check your large bags. Jeff sat at the table and soon the owner of Mood sat with him and talked to him for some time. My husband's business is world's away from the fashion district but he was pretty impressed after spending time here. 

These were the only two fabrics that I purchased. Both of them knits. I love the crinkly, multi-colored stripe.

This was the only lace that I picked up. It should be mostly cotton. This type of lace is usually at least 95% cotton. I just can't remember what the label said. I think it was running $7.50/yard. I bought three yards of this. 

One never knows when you're going to need elastic bridal loops. I needed to replenish my stash. 

Even though my time was short, I came away with a few items that I'm quite happy with. Thank You Mood!

Stop One, Paron's

There are possibly a hundred fabric shops in the garment district. How does one decide where to go? I had done some research on most of the fabric stores. I went armed with three Google maps indicating my choices. My first stop was Paron's. We started at the furthest end of the garment district then would work our way down to FIT. Paron's was mentioned several times in online articles that I had read. I decided that it had great reviews so I had to put that on my list. It didn't disappoint.

The staff was extremely friendly and knowledgeable. The lady that was helping me told me she would give me a discount. I think it was 15%. I was in search of a Burda Style magazine and immediately found it here. Well, one thing off my list. I can't tell you how much I wanted to buy a couple of containers of buttons. Those little containers were super heavy because they were packed with buttons. Many looked vintage, I don't know if they were, but they were a great deal. However, I knew that lugging 25 pounds of buttons through Manhattan was not a good plan so I scrapped that idea.

I was in awe at all the beautiful fabric. Of course I had expected to see lovely things. I was fortunate enough a few years ago to have a teeny, tiny window of fabric shopping time in NYC. But the wools and boucles and embroidered fabrics were overwhelming. I ended up purchasing two pieces of fabric. Actually a poly-cotton boucle that was made in France and a beautiful piece of lace that was made in Italy. The boucle I got for a whopping $7.00 a yard. The lace however was pricey. That was $36.00/yard. But remember I got a discount!

I put something dark under this cotton embroidery. I'm hoping that I will be able to cut between the flowers when I have the perfect project. I thinking a christening gown perhaps.

It's difficult to see but this was a three dimensional fabric.The leaves were not flat on the fabric. Simply gorgeous.

Paron's will certainly be on my list the next time I'm in NYC.

The Traveling Quilter Goes to North Carolina

I'm in North Carolina this week for spring break. The real purpose of the trip was for Taylor to do some research for one of her classes. She is studying Frederick Law Olmsted. The father of Landscape Architecture. So here we are at the Biltmore mansion looking at his work. I did find some time to do a little bit of shopping though. Originally, we were going to travel to Mary Jo's outside of Charlotte. The Detroit airport decided they didn't like that plan. After a major scramble trying to keep our plans on time, the airline routed us to Knoxville instead. We did manage to find a quilt store that wasn't too terribly far from our hotel.

The Asheville Cotton Company sells Bernina and Baby Lock machines in addition to lots of fabric. I found out about the shop via a brochure on the Fiber Fabric Bead Trail. The tag line for the shop is "keeping the mountains in stitches." The ad for the shop states that it has over 8000 bolts of fabric. Now, the shop is large but I don't know about the 8000 bolt bit. The shop gals were very friendly. The store sold a lot of the big designer names like Riley Blake and Amy Butler.

 
While you drive around the countyside, you may stumble upon one of the barns that has a quilt on the side. I saw three or four but only was able to get one picture. If you are traveling down south, I know that you will find info on the web on where to find them. And they're not limited to North Carolina!

Finally, this morning we spent time at the North Carolina Arboretum. Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot blooming. As we were walking the grounds, we came upon the quilt garden. Each year is dedicated to a different quilt block. How wonderful it would have been to visit during summer to see this. There are two educational buildings on the premises. We were told that one of the buildings usually has quilts on display but  during our visit, there were dolls there. The Asheville Quilt Guild invited Eleanor Peace Bailey to the quild to give a class on doll making and the guild members dolls were on display here. The dolls lined three corridors.

Fabric.com Equals Love

Every single day I receive an email from fabric.com. That's ok with me. It's not spam. They have a different special every day hence the frequent emails. Well over a week ago, the special of the day was an additional 30% off clearance prices. What's not to love about that. Well off I went to see if there were any treasures.

Right out of the gates, I spied this wonderful polka dot print from Michael Miller. I love polka dots. Like black and red, I considered them to be neutral. Polka dots seem to work with just about any quilt or children's garments. This print looks so whimsical to me.

I continued my search for bargains. I scored a Kaffe Fassett print. I'm thinking eventually that piece will be used for a child's frock. It's a directional design so I don't think I'll be putting it into a quilt. Maybe the best score was a vibrant, plaid seersucker fabric. Lot of colors, fushia, green, blue.

After a while of flipping screens, I decided to narrow my search. I typed in "cowboy" and brought up four pages of cowboy and western prints. I ended up adding two prints to the shopping cart. Well, ok, maybe those weren't on clearance. I saw the cowboy word print and thought that this piece would work in my quilts, clothing or crafts. Now that I have this wonderful little gem under my roof, I don't know if I'll be able to cut into it. Isn't that the problem with so many quilters and fabriholics? Ya just can't cut it.

Oh Yeah, I've Died and Gone to Fabric Heaven

It's quite unbelievable that with all the trips to North Carolina that I've never stepped foot into Mary Jo's. With the recent trip, that was now my priority. Luckily, my husband was agreeable. It helps that he's so busy with work and stayed at the hotel to be on his laptop. We needed to check out of the hotel at noon. I knew that I would be limited with time. I was going to go to Mary Jo's and Long Creek Mills which is pretty much across town in Gastonia, NC. Check out time was approaching and Jeff had brought the luggage downstairs and started to work in the hotel lobby. The front desk lady started to talk to Jeff. The conversation went like this:
Lady: You know, your wife left here before 9:00.
Jeff: Yes, I know.
Lady: Where did she go?
Jeff: She went to the fabric store.
Lady: Did she go to Mary Jo's?
Jeff: Yes she did.
Lady: You know, some women never return when they go to Mary Jo's.
Jeff: Great.

Have you ever had butterflies in your stomach because you knew that the adventure would be fantastic. Well, I got up early to make sure that I would get to Mary Jo's early. The parking lot already had lots of cars in it. As you can see, the place isn't upscale. This is one way I'm sure that helps to keep her prices low. When I walked in and saw the expanse of the store, I decided to spend time casing the joint. I spent about 20-30 minutes walking thru the store and developing my plan of attack. I didn't bring any information on my home dec needs so the home dec department was out. I can tell you that the home dec fabric takes up about half of the store. The fabric of course is just beautiful. Lot's of shoppers in this department.

I decided to concentrate on lace. I was looking for heirloom laces and bridal laces. I came away with lots of heirloom laces but no bridal lace. I was very specific about what I wanted. I needed a 3-6 inch flounce of schiffli lace for bridal garters. I've made so many garters over the years that my bridal stash is severely limited. As you can see, there was certainly tons of lace, just not what I was looking for. I think I spent an hour in the heirloom lace dept deciding on the laces and having them cut. Look at the rows of rick rack that was in the trim department. I've never seen such choices before. I wanted to buy some but needed to spend my time (and money) elsewhere.

I think the two biggest draws to Mary Jo's is the home dec fabric and the bridal fabric. I can see why. Both departments were quite busy. There were several brides shopping. It was very hard not to touch all that beautiful lace. You just don't see the quality of alencon lace around here. Well, pretty much you don't see this lace in any store where I live. The prices for the beaded alencon lace ran up to $165.00/yard I think. Not too bad.

Next stop was the cotton department. I held strong and didn't buy any quilting fabrics. Mary Jo's has the best prices around on quilting fabrics. She also carries all the big names. What I usually pay is about $9.50/yard. At Mary Jo's, $6.49/yard. Believe me, it was hard to turn that down. I ended up with three pieces of very soft cottons for heirloom sewing. One is an Imperial Batiste which I can get around here but once again, the price was right. The other two pieces were sweet little girl prints. Hopefully someday I'll have a granddaughter that will have a dress out of this fabric. The store does an excellent job of organizing the fabrics. Batiks were all together, reds, blues, beige, etc all together. She even had polka dots together.

When I tell people that I spent two hours at Mary Jo's they can't believe that is all the time that I was there. Believe me, on my next visit I'll try to schedule more time. I can't wait to go back to Mary Jo's. For anyone that is interested, she does have a website, http://maryjos.com. Her website isn't like others because she can't possibly show all the fabrics, trims and notions. You can call the store and place an order over the phone. Now, onward to Long Creek Mills.

Italian Fabric Stores

Talk about textile heaven. Italians love sumptuous fabrics. Silks like you wouldn't believe. I had a goal of shopping in one fabric store. I had seen a couple of stores in Venice but they were closed. Rome was going to be the place for fabric. I had done some pre-trip internet searching. Armed with the location of the textile area (Latin Quarters), we set off for the textile store (Bassetti Tessuti) across town. I was just in awe. Fabric stacked up to the ceiling. I didn't want to take a lot of time because Kim doesn't sew and we needed to hoof it to the Vatican that day. I came home with some bath towels and towel fabric. I wish I could have come home with much more but time and money were lacking. The silks were gorgeous but everything I looked at was about $150 euro/meter or about $200 a meter. Yikes! There was a small corner of bridal laces. Once again, I couldn't find anything less than $150 eu/meter. There were a couple of bridal parties looking at fabrics for dresses. The employees were very patient and helpful. I wish I could have found some fabrics and laces for heirloom sewing but that didn't happen. I am just grateful I had an opportunity to visit such a wonderful store.

I'm Not Obsessed!

Well, at least not with the cowgirl fabric yet. I have a small start of a collection. This is also mine. I am not going to give this away. The girls were calling my name. One day I was in Hobby Lobby and saw this fabric on clearance. No one wanted it. It was up to me to save EmmyLou, Ruby, Nell, Ma and Kitty from further humiliation by being in the clearance bin. I brought the fabric home where it is loved and wanted. Now I just need to find some companion fabrics for the cowgirls. I know just where to find some, e-prairiegirls.com. It's amazing the email newsletters that I'm on.