Window shopping

I went to Macy's yesterday for skincare products and decided to do a little window or snoop shopping, however you may want to describe it. I saw several sweater type jackets of interest as well as several dresses.

I found the quality to be not to good bad.  One sweater had faux leather trim along the front zipper closing that was puckered and top stitched badly.  There was no stabilizing elastic or seam tape to keep the shoulders from stretching and drooping.

There were other issues as well.  With every item I looked at, I kept saying you would sew this garment much better.  I even have similar fabric or know where to acquire it!

I am looking forward to some quality sewing time this weekend.  It has been a long work week and sewing is such a good way to rid one of stress.

Fabrics from Waechter’s

I wanted to share with you my recent fabric purchases from my trip to Asheville and Waechter’s Fine Fabrics.

I had so many choices to make; their selection was great but I was on a budget so I had to leave some of my fabric wants behind.

I loved the fit of the Vogue 8750 skirt pattern that I decided to purchase a dark navy blue cotton bottom-weight fabric to make another skirt. 

I love the feel and weight of this fabric.

Displayed near by was some 100% rayon fabric.  One particularly caught my eye was a navy blue background with shoes printed all over.  I want to make a blouse/top to wear with the navy blue skirt to be.

This photo does not do this fabric justice.  The blue background is much darker than it appears here.

The fabric below is another rayon of crème, gray and blue.  Again to made into a top/blouse.

The final piece was a gray textured knit.  I am thinking cowl neck knit top for this one. 

Back from Asheville

Well I am back from my recent business trip to Asheville, NC.  Let me say that it has been several years since I visited this lovely city. I wish I could have extended my stay there.  There is so much to see and I just did not get the time to do all that I would have liked.

I did get some time to visit Waechter's Fine Fabrics.  They were about 10 minutes from the hotel. Once I checked in and knew I had about four hours before the reception, I entered address into Verizon Navigator and I was on my way.   I did find some fabulous fabrics and picked up a few independent patterns.  Their employees were so helpful and entertaining.  It was a great visit.

I have been recharging camera batteries so I could take a few photos of my newest items to my fabric/pattern collection.

I resumed my sewing again yesterday evening and getting closer to finishing the Simplicity skirt.  It is not a real difficult pattern to sew; the challenge for me is the sewing steps are rather different from my thoughts on how you would sew it.  Yet their way makes a lot of sense.

I am hoping that I now have several weeks ahead of me for sewing and less traveling.  I have so many sewing ideas and items I want to sew.  More later.

Back from Charleston

I returned from Charleston, SC on Wednesday evening.  I enjoyed my visit but would have liked to have had a few more days to see more of the city.  I spent Tuesday AM in downtown Charleston and a lot of time walking around the City Market and visiting shops close to that area.

I saw a sign for Hancock's Fabrics but did not have time to stop and shop.  I ate some fabulous food while there; perhaps really more than I should have.

I did find a pair of shoes at a really neat shoe store that was within an air conditioned area of the city market.  It is called Charleston Shoe Company.  They are comfortable and affordable shoes. Here is a link to their website, if interested.

Here is a really blurry shot of the shoes I bought.  They are sooooo comfortable. The fabric is a stretch fabric.  Most all of their shoes are washable in the delicate cycle.

Another package!

My zippers from Erica's Sewing arrived Thursday!   I feel like I can make some progress on the KS jacket now.  Though I still have yet to cut out the fabric, when it is cut I know I have all that I need to get started! 

I also got two new Australian Stitches magazines.  I really like this magazine.  I use to buy it locally but then they stopped carrying it.  I find inspiration and pattern fitting articles from reading this magazine.  I also drool over some of the fabrics that are advertised in the magazine.

Spring has sprung!

Today was such a gorgeous spring day that I spent the AM doing some spring cleaning around the house. Then spent time sitting in the yard while DH washed my car.

After showers, we went out to do some shopping and then dinner. We got home around 8PM and dropped into our LazyBoys! Thus no sewing today but gosh it was such a great day to be outside, in the warm 71 degrees.

I will sew buttons on my Sencha blouse in the AM and start the McCall's top. More later.

Where did the week go?

You go on vacation, then go back to work and no sewing. Though I am thinking about it and planning projects. I had even planned to purchase some fabric from Vogue Fabrics and the material I wanted was sold out! I am angry with myself as I had several opportunities to place the order and didn't.

I was in Richmond Thursday evening and all day Friday for business. Unfortunately I was not able to find a moment to go to any fabric store while there. Today is our ASG's Christmas luncheon so no sewing this AM and DH and I are doing some family shopping this afternoon. Hopefully this evening I can advance my plans to cut out some skirt patterns and is some cases trace the BWOF patterns for fitting and cutting.

I am taking a few moments this AM to read blogs and see what others are up to before getting ready to go to luncheon. Happy sewing to all.

A little sewing going on here

Today has been a good day. I got drapes and curtains for the house. Curtains were for the kitchen. I put those up. Drapes are going to require a little assistance from DH.

I bought the curtains at Bed, Bath and Beyond. I love that store. They have more gadgets and stuff for the entire household. I bought some stack and lock food storage containers. I have not bought things like this since we moved into the house almost 6 years ago. Thought it was time for a change.

I went to B&N and purchased the fall Vogue and InStyle magazines. Trying to get pumped up for some fall sewing.

I started working on the blouse again. I found a few sewing flaws with collar attachment to blouse, so reworked that. Serge finished the sleeves and then got side tracked on doing some other things in the sewing room. Then discovered it was time to start dinner so got that started and decided to post a little to the blog while things are simmering.

I am not feeling the love for this blouse at this time. Yet I want to finish it so I can move on to some other sewing projects. I don't want to put it aside, I have really gone to far to just stop. It's just not making me feel like it is what my expectations were. Will see.

Oh I got my Burda magazine today and plan to peruse that this evening.

Later.

Meeting another Blogger

I was in Charlottesville on Monday visiting some of my staff in the area. Through the blogging world and contacts made through that, I learned that Elaray whose blog is Another Creation was in the area as well since her daughter attends college there.

We were able to meet up at Les Fabrique. It was a pleasure to meet a fellow blogger /sewist and her friend who does not sew but has great taste in fabric. I will have to take a photo of the fabric I bought influenced by the non-sewist who said something like "that would look great with a brown suit".

It was interesting that we talked about other bloggers' garments, fabrics, patterns and the like. It was like we knew so much about others through our joy of sewing and blogging.

I wish I could have stayed longer and visited some other stores with her and her friend but I had to return to Roanoke and work.

Elaray, I hope your trip was pleasant and that your return home was safe.

Richmond Trip

I love Richmond. The more I travel here for business, the more places I find to go after meetings.

Last night I went to Hancock fabrics on Midlothian Turnpike. I found some black crepe fabric to become a dress using the recent Simplicity pattern. They sell KS patterns, so purchased two of them. They also sell DVD's and I purchased two of the Palmer/Pletsch DVD's. I then had dinner at a new Chinese restaurant in the same strip center. It was the best Chinese I have eaten in a long time. They were having a grand opening and I truly hope they do well as I plan to eat there again when next I am in town.

Tonight I went to a mall called Short Pump Town Center which is a suburb of Richmond or it is to me. They have Nordstrom's, Dillards, J Crew, J Jill, Chico's etc. All of the stores we do not have in Roanoke. I was able to acquire two Kasper three piece suits on sale for $89.00 each. In RTW and in petite sizes, Kasper is the best fitting garments on me. They were regularly priced at $280. I am doing my part obviously for stimulating the economy. I will get tired of the suits before I will ever wear them out.

The great part about this shopping adventure was the window shopping. I saw so many sleeveless blouses with ruffles just like this and this. Plus numerous other garments similar to numerous other patterns in BWOF.

Time to shut down now, early meeting tomorrow. Then on the road back to Roanoke. Weekend is in sight.

Newest fabric purchase and new sewing plans

As mentioned in an earlier post, I just acquired another lovely knit fabric from Gorgeous Fabrics. Here is the promised photo.



I am thinking about making this Butterick dress pattern and using this fabric.




I also want to make this McCall's dress. I have a brown with white circles knit that I acquired I believe from Fabric.com. about a year ago that I want to use to make this one. More later.

Back from DC and no fabric

I returned yesterday late afternoon from DC. It was a very good conference and weather though to some was "hot"; it was perfect for me. Unfortunately for me my plans to go to G Street got canceled; it was a work related thing that started out as a mountain and was really only a mole hill. I did however go shopping (mostly window shopping) with some of my staff at the Fashion Centre Mall at Pentagon City. I think we made it to all floors. So much to see and not enough money or time.

I did get some great ideas for blouses with ruffles. I also saw a blouse costing over $100 with the worst sewn ruffles ever on a blouse. I wanted to take a photo of it with my cell phone but sales lady kept hanging around while I looked. More about this later.

Back to the office today!

Fabrics and Patterns

Back from my business trip to Fredericksburg. Starting semi vacation this AM. Semi, as I am also doing some work from home while also vacationing. It is budget season, I think that says it all. I have over $6M budget responsibility and I have great staff who are doing budgets as well. Team effort. Still time consuming process.

Okay, enough business talk.

I wanted to show you some recent fabric purchases made this month and this week.

Top two fabrics I acquired from Gorgeous Fabrics(GF). The left is a blend of some sort, a suiting fabric. Yet I will be making a dress from it as I was inspired by a dress at Macy's that is similar to the black dress from this Butterick pattern.

The upper right fabric is also from GF. It is grayish jersey. It was not quite what I expected. Hard to know from descriptions sometimes what the feel of the knit is like. The quality is good, I mean this is GF fabrics. It is just a knit that I shy away from as it could be clingy depending on style of pattern used. I just don't have a clingy body anymore. So I am thinking about several options for this knit.

The bottom photos are fabrics I acquired from Hancock's-Fredericksburg when not at meetings. The green and teal fabrics are knits with some beef to them. Not real heavy nor light. Probably similar to what some call Sophia or Juliet knits. The putty colored fabric is poly suiting with herringbone design. I have a similar fabric I purchased from Hancock's-Danville a few years ago that I have yet to make up.

I was so impressed with Sharon's jacket and her blog said to buy this pattern,

so I did that while at Hancock's as well. I also bought this one, again inspired by garments at Macy's or Belk's.

New fabrics

I bought some knit fabrics during the month and all arrived last week. I renewed my Vogue Fabric subscription and while online renewing I decided to look at some of the clearance fabrics. Here's what I purchased.

The yellow is a nice polyester knit with nice body and not very drapey. The other fabric is a brown and white with orange/brown border running down both selvages. Feels great and is rather drapey.

I participated in the Sewing Studios week long sale which ended last Sunday. I acquired two knit fabrics which I believe are a poly and cotton blend. The colors are coral and melon. I was surprised how well they went with the yellow knit from Vogue. Here's a shot of these three fabrics together. I have a Kwik Sew pattern in mind to make a dress from all three knits.

Photo courtesy of Kwik Sew.com

Weekend sewing

I have not gotten much sewing in this week. No surprise there! I have been thinking about sewing my cardigan and top though. I ordered some fold over elastic from Saf-T-Pockets.com as they have a great color selection of this elastic. I ordered a pale yellow as the background color for the cardi/cami is pale yellow. I am hoping that this will match/blend well enough to use this on the cami neckline. I received a notice that it has been shipped; so maybe, maybe, maybe it will arrive this weekend.

I also had an opportunity this week to do some window shopping at Macy's while out for lunch. I got some great ideas for dresses and knew I had numerous patterns at home that would be very similar to those in the store. I am hoping that something in my fabric collection will jump out and say "make me"!

Fabric purchase

Yes, I did! I took advantage of the 50% off wool sale and bought these two fabrics yesterday AM. First one is black and olive, wool and silk blend. The yellow one is a unusual weave and a yellow color that I really love. It reminded me of a suit I made years ago that I got great compliments when I wore it. Unfortunately the suit shrunk over the years and thus made its way to Goodwill.

Photos courtesy of Fabric Mart website

Trip to Richmond

I traveled to Richmond, VA on Thursday to attend a business meeting and stayed over as the meeting would continue to the following day. We all went to dinner at a place called Crab Louie's. Great food and great service.

When traveling to Richmond, I had to get to the Midlothian Turnpike. As I am heading down the road, I spot a Hancock's Fabric store. Fortunately I was able to stop at the store when I was heading out of town. I did find some nice fabric but left it all at the store. It was nice but was not jumping of the shelf into my hands. I was able to pick up a Simplicity pattern and three Kwik Sew patterns. More on those later. Since the closing of the Hancock's here, I had not been in one in almost two years.

This was a pretty good size store. I wish I had had more time to shop. I had another commitment that evening so needed to get on the road.

Carolyn's Brand Loyalty Question

If you click on the title above, it should link you to Carolyn of Diary of a Sewing Fanatic blog. Carolyn is what I call a "deep thinker" and many of her posts asks the reader a thought provoking question. One of the reasons I like to read her blog.


Yesterday she posed the question about fabric store brand loyalty-not only brick and mortar stores but online as well. I think that I have online brand loyalty as I seem to buy fabrics from specific online stores on a fairly regular basis. Sometimes I buy more from one site than another based on their current offerings.

I did enjoy shopping Hancock's fabric brick and mortar store until they closed ours. I suppose I should look at their online offerings more frequently but their website just does not feel appealing to me.

Depending on where I have lived, Jo Ann's was a key store for me in some areas. I personally think that not all Jo Ann's are equal. Meaning some had better fabric selections for fashion sewists versus my local one that seems to appeal to quilters and other crafting hobby's. Sometimes I get lucky when I visit our local store but not often. We did have two Jo Ann's in town, one 10 minutes from my home. That one was closed and thus I have to travel to the other side of town which is only 20 to 25 minutes away. Yet I really never know what to expect when I visit that store. It always looks so empty and I always expect to hear that they will be closing just because it is not well stocked. I never shop online with Jo Ann's.

For me I do have brand loyalty to several online sites. The reason is that they offer quality fabrics at good prices. Since I shop with them frequently I have saved them as favorite bookmarks on my Google homepage. Makes it very easy to click and go there. Included in this list are:

• EmmaOneSock
• Gorgeous Fabrics
• Fabric Mart
• Fabric.com
• Fashionista Fabrics
• Vogue Fabrics
• Fashion Fabric Club

I have not purchased from some of the above in recent months. Only because I have not seen any fabric that I could not live without. There are numerous other fabric sites that I visit and purchase from, though sporadically.

I think my answer is I do have brand loyalty to numerous online sites as my shopping experience has been good, available fabric choices are normally very good, prices are good and most of all service is excellent.

I will always be on the lookout for new fabric sources online and if found and if I try them they will have to live up to those above to make my list.

Deliveries

Well I did not do any sewing today! The weather was gorgeous today-low 70's. DH and I decided to go motorcycle riding and it was a perfect day for that. We then went to Outback for dinner.




Upon returning home, I checked the mailbox and found two more patterns I ordered from BMV. These are Butterick patterns and they had a sale earlier this week. So did Vogue and yes I ordered three patterns from them.



Here are the two Butterick patterns I ordered.

This is a dress for knit fabric-either Double Knit or Ponte Knit. Yesterday I received my fabric order from Fabric.com and part of the order included two yards of Ponte Knit in Navy. Not sure if that is enough to make either dress, but will check that out tomorrow.

This skirt pattern I ordered after seeing Erica B's gorgeous skirt she made using this pattern. A great looking skirt and I decided I needed to make this one also.

I have one more snap to sew on the dress that is taking way too long to complete. Once that is done I plan to decide which of numerous projects I have going on in my head to start on tomorrow. Good thing for me is that Monday is a holiday so sewing is the plan for the day.

Fabric purchase yesterday

In reading emails yesterday, I read one from Fabric.com about a sale that ended at midnight (11:59). They had (have) a great assortment of new knits that I found irresistible. So I made a purchase of only 2 of the designer knits and a purchase of ponte knit which I want to try. I keep seeing gorgeous items in the Talbot's catalogues made from ponte knit. Hopefully this one that I bought will be of the same quality. It was a navy blue.

Here's what I purchased. I obviously was in a blue mood. The quality of the last knits I purchased was great. Of course, I still have a few of those waiting for me to sew up as well.