Stop Six, Around the World

 Can you believe there is a store that sells just fashion magazines? The reason this was on my list was so I could pick up the latest edition of Burda Style. I had purchased that at stop one, so I didn't really need anything. Wanted yes. Some of the specialty magazines had a price tag of over $200 for one issue! But as the name implies, they have magazines from around the world. I never knew there were so many Vogue editions. Around the World is a huge store. This is actually a new location for them. They've were only open maybe a couple of months before we visited.

There was a couple of magazines that I did have my eye on. There were some old, and I do mean old, Italian childrens wear magazines. The price tag was $20 for a magazine that was at least seven to eight years old! I'm not in the industry so I was hesitant to plunk down that kind of money for a magazine. The issue was thick and had cute things in it. Another trip perhaps.

.

Stop Five, Spandex House

 Yes, Spandex House was on my list of stores to visit. If you're a garment sewer, this is the place to go for knits. Anything that has stretch in it can be found here. The huge rolls of fabric are stacked high.This is only part of the store.

I think this bag of knit weighed 10 pounds. Thank goodness Jeff was carrying it.

This is a thinner, lower quality knit but I got it for $1.00 a yard. I'll be able to make something with it. 

My two purchases from Spandex House. The stars and stripes fabric is lycra. I plan to make my niece a little swimsuit with it.

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 Three, Daytona Braids and Trimmings

This little store packs a punch. It looks small from the outside but there's a lot of merchandise per square foot in this place.

Let me tell you about the best thing or should I say person here. I'm kicking myself for not remembering her name. I didn't ask if I could take her picture but she was a hoot. Right out of the gates, she let us know about the store. She told me how to mark the items that I wanted then we would go through and cut everything at once. Jeff and I were sad to leave we had so much fun with her. I think she made a comment on being tired and not going to make it to the end of the day. I said, "Can you just hold on until I'm done shopping then you can have your meltdown?" That started our time in the store. She was a hoot.

Lot's of fun stuff. No particular project in mind but when in Rome.

I had to get some of this. I don't think I've seen this around town. Its loops on elastic. So you could do maybe shoulder straps for a little girls garment. Who knows. I'll think of something!

My husband helped me shop for these trims. He wanted the Dutch trims. Having a Dutch son-in-law, we hope we have a little Dutch-German-Irish grandchild someday. Of course I had to have the nautical trim.

Stop Two, Sposabella Lace

For family and friends who really know me, they know that I love lace. This is when I wish I were a Victorian and was able to wear all of the gorgeous cotton laces. But since I'm not a Victorian, I need to find another way to get my lace fix. So bridal gowns, garters, christening gowns are when I get to play. Too bad in my neck of the woods, nice lace is impossible to find. Exquisite lace is not something most people see now a days. This is another product that was sent out of France, the USA, Italy and Switzerland to China. I knew that I needed to make a stop at Sposabella Lace and Lace Star while I had the chance to see what they had.
I don't have any weddings or christenings coming up but I needed to stop just the same. I came out of Sposabella with this piece of cotton lace. Very pricey but it came home with me. I bought two yards of it. I think I paid $25.00 a yard for it.

Sposabella has mixed reviews. Either five stars or a one star. The store is extremely small. The owner of the store had helped me. I can't say he was overly friendly as the rest of the textile stores but I certainly didn't go there for tea and cookies. I would shop there again. 

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.

New York, New York

For our anniversary trip this year, I was lucky enough to do two things. The Adirondack Mountains have been on my To See list for some time now. It was absolutely beautiful. Please, if anyone ever says anything disparaging about New Yorkers, don't believe them. We met the most wonderful people and had a fantastic time in such a beautiful spot.

The second wonderful place we went was into New York City to see our daughter Lauren. You know what's ahead for me don't you? The garment district or as it's called now, the Fashion District. One entire day of feet brutality. I could barely get out of bed the next day due to all the walking. I had a list of maybe six to eight must go to textile shops. We walked by so many shops and my husband kept asking if I wanted to go in. I told him I had to tackle my list, if there was any time left, then I could do some extra shopping. 

Our day started at Parson's School of Design then ended at FIT for the Sporting Life exhibit. I yelled for Tim Gunn but apparently he didn't hear me. It was a fabulous day even though I wasn't able to get Tim's attention.

At the end of our day, we walked back to my daughter's office. Her office is just across the street from the Empire State Building.

It's Bridal Gown Week

I decided that I needed a dedicated week to working on the gown. Not an evening or a couple hours on the weekend. The gown was put on hold for about three to four weeks while the tear- out was underway. I took the satin and wrapped it and tucked it behind the clothes in my closet. I couldn't risk the silk getting snagged or dirty with the remodel.

Day one of vacation, sewing did not happen. We didn't start moving furniture back inside until the night before. Yesterday was spent trying to unbox our belongings and putting them away.



Day two. I am back to basting the silk organza to the bridal satin. I think I mentioned that this has to be hand basted. The fabrics love to move around. There is little chance that they would stay together if I machine basted the fabrics. The silk organza is basted to the wrong side of the silk satin. It's purpose is to give the satin some body and help strengthen the sating. After the two fabrics are basted, they are treated as one fabric. When a pattern piece has been basted, I pin the pattern to the basted pieces to keep everything together. You can see my markings on the pattern for my changes and to indicate the pattern is the final pattern, not an earlier prototype.

Some things of importance is that you need to use fine glass head pins. Satin doesn't take too kindly to pins and little hole marks will be left in the fabric. I am using fine pins and silk thread to keep the size of the holes to a minimum. The basting is done in the seam allowance. All pinning needs to be done in the seam allowance.



After the satin has been cut, I am clipping it in a pants hanger. I am trying to keep wrinkles to a minimum. The reason being that I want to keep pressing to a minimum. I don't want to run the risk any problems with the iron with this expensive fabric. Wrinkles are also hard to get out of satin so I want to do my best by not creating any more wrinkles.

The Hemingway Room

One of our goals last month while in North Carolina was to find some furniture to fit into a weird space in our house. There is a large space between our kitchen and the sunroom. When we moved into the house, I decided to turn the sunroom into our dining room. The previous owner used the space between rooms for their dining space.

Jeff had been talking for a couple of months about turning the room back into a sunroom and buy furniture to fit it. We had some somewhat heated debates about this room and what type of furniture. I felt that we already had a house of furniture and it didn't make sense to buy more in this stage in our life. He finally relented and told me I was right. The furniture that was in the sunroom was purchased for that room. So with that problem solved, I told him that we needed to look for maybe two unusual chairs or a game table for our odd space.

We arrived at the Hickory Furniture mall and walked into our first store. There sat this table to the left as we walked into the store. Jeff immediately fell in love with this. We took three days and shopped and drove to many furniture outlets and stores. On the last day, we came back to purchase this table and chairs. The table has inlaid marble in it. We felt that the banana leaves added to the look of the room. So even though I won the initial argument, my husband won the battle. Drats! I hate when that happens. I will say that the table and leather chairs give the house a masculine feel to it. It helps to ground the room.

My Amish table that was in the dining room got moved to the odd space. I think it's a little weird to have two tables so close to each other. Oh well. You may be asking why this room is called the Hemingway room. I felt that it is somewhat eclectic in that there are items/themes from different parts of the world. We have a print with the King of Prussia in it, I have a wood plague that we bought in Germany. I have a French clock. You get the picture. Things from around the world just like Hemingway's home, from safari to Havana chic. My belongings aren't as exotic as Ernest Hemingway, but varied non-the-less.

Thread Heaven

After I was finished at Mary Jo's, I drove through 22 stoplights to Long Creek Mills. That is how they describe getting from Mary Jo's to Long Creek Mills. I thought I had gone to far. Surely I had gone through that many stoplights and more. Never saw the street. So I turned around then decided that maybe I was on track to begin with. We didn't bring our GPS unit with us this trip because Taylor had it. This store is just like Mary Jo's, a little bit nondescript. I drove by it and thought, this is insane. I've spent enough time and money I should just go back to the hotel and pick up Jeff. Well, I turned around and finally found the store. Once again, I was overwhelmed at the inventory that was packed into that little store. How hard can buying thread be? I was there over 30 minutes and literally racing thru the isles trying to get out in a decent span of time. Prices were very reasonable. I think the embroidery thread was running about $1.75 for a 1000 yd spool. I came out of Long Creek with over a $100 worth of thread and stabilizers. At least with Long Creek, I'll be able to order online. My goal was to purchase different products to try at home then I would know what to order in the future.

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.