London Meet Up

I was lucky to be contacted by Rachel of House of Pinheiro last week, telling me she needed to go fabric shopping and would I like to meet up to go to Goldhawk Road - would I? Absolutely, yes!!  Not only is Rachel super supportive in the blogging and Twitter world, she makes fabulous clothes and I just knew we would get along.

We met at St Pancreas Station to take the tube to Goldhawk Rd and chatted the whole way, almost like we had known one another for years.

Once at Goldhawk Road we went in and out of almost all the stores, Rachel had a couple of specific projects in mind and I was just happy to see what was on offer, being my first time there.

The highlights for both of us were Toni Textiles at #51 and Classic Textiles across the road at #44.

Rachel was a little tall for downstairs at Classic Textiles

Classic Textiles in particular was an absolute find - I bought a beautiful black double wool crepe for £6/metre, I debated the cost of a Valentino double wool crepe for £16.50/m, but just had to have it as it feels divine and the colour is gorgeous. I also bought ponti knit for £4.50/m in a lovely teal blue.

Rachel is such an enabler - she said to me "you have to buy it, you need it!". Well who could argue with that ;)

Rachel bought some beautiful fabrics too, but I will leave it to her to share these with you!

We then went to the St Pancreas Renaissance Hotel to meet her lovely partner, have a spot of lunch and of course to chat some more. It is so nice to meet up with a fellow sewing blogger who knows what you are talking about when you mention various other bloggers, gets the sewalongs and shares my passion for fabrics and making garments. The day seemed to fly by, before we knew it, it was 4pm! 

Wearing my Hollyburn skirt and Coppelia cardigan (still to be blogged) - see how short I am, I am a step higher and still shorter than Rachel!



We had such a lovely day and left like old friends - my thanks go to Rachel for an fabulous day out!

NYC Meet Up

I was lucky to be in NYC last weekend and was able to attend the meetup arranged by Ginger of GingerMakes.  There were eight of us in all, Kerry from Kestrel Makes and Finds all the way from Scotland, Mika, Ginger, Cindy, Janice, Marina, Kelli and of course me from Australia.

We started off on 39th at Parons which has a fabulous array of fabrics ranging from simple cottons, to wools, sateens, silks.  Many of the fabrics here are ex-fashion houses of Europe and so there was some lovely tempting options.  I chose to start slowly and wait to see what other treasures arose, grass is always greener you know! 

We then headed to Chic Fabrics where the stack of fabrics was overwhelming, somewhere under this pile is their cutting counter:



Kerry and I perusing the many options (I bought some of the black daisy print in my hand).  BTW - this is my hastily made Hazel (will blog this soon), hmmm...nice bra strap, must fix that!


photo courtesy of GingerMakes

We then headed across the road to Gray Line Linen where I could not resist a red polka dot print linen, and for me a bargain at $9.50/yd, linen is expensive in Australia and we seldom see prints.

All this shopping made us hungry, so a yummy pizza lunch was next on the agenda.



Then it was off to the much acclaimed Mood Fabrics.  Did it live up to the hype?  For me, MOST DEFINITELY, it was like my own personal heaven!  This place was amazing, first of all, check out the range of zips:



The infamous Swatch

The top floor is mostly wool and cashmere, the middle floor dress fabrics, cottons, silks, jersey etc and the bottom floor home decor.  I was pretty overwhelmed by all the choices and found it really hard to restrain myself from buying everything that was pretty.

I managed to restrain myself and only bought a Marc Jacobs cotton print and a gorgeous floral silk jersey.

From left to right: Janice, Marina, Kelli, Cindy, Ginger, Mika, Kerry, me.

Loving the Marc Jacobs print, I hope I bought enough

My purchases for the day:


Clockwise from top left:  Marc Jacobs eyelet cotton, Floral silk jersey, polka dot linen, heart print silk rayon, daisy print cotton.

I had such a fabulous day, these girls were lovely and it was nice to talk fabric and sewing for several hours and not get any rolling of the eyes or general signs of boredom that I might get from my IRL friends.  I am really looking forward to seeing what everyone else makes, being there for the fabric purchase makes me feel like I have been a part of the process!