“I’m in fabric heaven. Don’t pinch me!!!” – OMG – Mood Fabrics NYC

1 1/2 hours! At Mood Fabrics. In New York City. It. Was. Amazing.

Both the City and the store; in their entities not comparably maybe, but if you will: Both so full of choice and possibilities, it made my slightly light-headed (the shop more so than Manhattan… when it comes to dizziness… if that makes any sense… it doesn’t… right… move on, please; this is not a travel blog anyways).

I mean – GUYS – just Look. At. This.

… and this….

SO MUCH CHOICE! And there’s an Upstairs there, too.

… fabric as far as the eye can see. Seriously – I’ve never seen such a variety all cramped into one… space.

(Oh, I would never!!!)

I even caught myself standing in front of swimwear fabric. Lovely lovely swimwear fabric. And I was thinking; I could make a Swimsuit. Why not? Same happened in front of the silk shelf (blouse would have been the project)…

… the woven fabric shelf, the striped cotton shelf…

 

…the brocade, the wool crepe, the lawn, the tons of different jersey varieties…

… the poplin, the flannel, the denim (if you look close enough, you might see a glimpse of my confusion in the last picture – photo credits, btw, by the best guy on earth and my boyfriend who not only secretly trailed me through the shop but also took all the above snapshots while I was busy not deciding; and when I “caught” him at it he said: “I’m taking pictures for your blog.” That’s just adorable.)

Spoiled for choice I ended up with three fabrics:

My personal paparazzi and best support ever, treated me to the one on the left. It’s going to become an Archer Shirt (or a slight modification of that); the striped one at the top I’ll turn into an Alder Shirt Dress (all as announced here, in the Re-Sew-lution post… though, again, with prints more bold than expected. But WTF. It’s MOOD FABRIC, for heaven’s sake!)

The last one already accomplished its mission. I decided to use the wrong side of that fabric for the project (left in picture) – I love the washed out look; looks so relaxed, a bit country and yet… exotic… I’m again not making any sense, am I?!

Country-exotic or not, this is what it became; a Colette Pattern Laurel Dress:

I’ve made that pattern before and although I thus realised that I like it better when I take in more at the waist, make it shorter and take in the back dart by 2cm each, I was under the impression that – yes, this time – I wanted it more loose.

Turned out; I was wrong. I re-fitted it. On me, it’s much better with a more defined waist.

So see – I do have a travel blog in a way; I’ve taken you aaaaaaaall the way from Midtown Manhatten to my living room (did you see? I’ve killed my plant ;( – black thumb. That one below the mirror is its successor. Good luck, my little plant friend!).

Hopefully will crack on with the Alder Dress Shirt this weekend. We’ll see… I sort of have to preserve those lovely Mood fabrics for projects on lousy autumn days, where I at least mentally can go back to Manhattan, no?!

Where to fabric shop next????!!!! To infinity – and beyond!

Autumn re-sew-lutions 14

I’ve been thinking (which I do quite frequently) – why wait till the end of the year to wrap up on my re-sew-lutions from the beginning of this year and not recap on all hits and misses NOW AND take those into consideration for the big, foggy challenge of the … daaadaaaaa… AUTUMN WARDROBE…

(Though I might be promising a bit too much here, because what I’ve done in terms of “recap” is add an “Update” for each planned “beginning of year” project… and I’ve included some ranting about my inability to stick to my sewing plans here later in the post – if that is still good with you, be my guest, pull up a chair, remind me to treat you to some red wine shall we ever meet.)

What I’ve started a couple of months ago, you see, is even more thinking – the superficial type; I’ve tried to put a bit more thought into how to put outfits together. Which resulted in quite a lot of frustration and more misses than hits (and me giving a lot of stuff away to charity; if I haven’t worn it in 12 months… why is it still in that wardrobe, if it is not a coat, a wedding dress or ball gown ?! – and even then; shouldn’t I be going to balls more often then?! ). But it’s a … good … sort of frustration. The one that helps you to get better.

Sarai from Colette Patterns inspired me to wardrobe thoughts with her blog series “Wardrobe Architect ”  – very well structured, very informative, very enlightening indeed. Pair this up with Anuschka’s posts on the brilliant  Into Mind style blog (a reading suggestion from Sarai’s blog) and you (I) will only be half depressed that your (my) “signature style” doesn’t come to you (me) over a weekend and a bit.

Right, so – all in all – here we go; that’s what my style book suggests for autumn / winter 2014 / 2015 (there’s a bit too much blue jeans going on there, I know; but what this tells me is: keep it dark and plain from the waist down. I’m not saying that those are the actual pieces I will be going for; these are just IDEAS, I would like to follow. And some of them hand-made, too.)

 

 

(Did you see how I sneaked two Mulberry bags in there?! And the Burberry Poncho?! Yeah!!!… no,  not going to happen…)

So, this is how I (shape- and pieceswise) envision my autumn / winter wardrobe.

And now, something mysterious will happen – over the next upcoming weeks you’ll be witnessing pure magic; because I will not be sewing what my wardrobe recipe says. Why won’t I be doing this? Because I’m nuts! That’s why. Because amongst the top 10 things I cannot – for the life of me – resist are

1) bold fabric prints

2) experimental sewing pattern

3) cake and red wine (which feed into the sewing challenge (PUN!))

A first proof could well be my upcoming post on my visit to Mood Fabrics in New York. That fabric I bought there! Magic! And the dress I’ve been making with one of the pieces. LOVE! Just NOT what I reckon will suit me. Well done, me! But you can read and judge for yourself once I’ve put this up.

From the start of my sewing on I’ve been doing a frequent Dr Jekyll –> Mr Hyde transformation whenever I visit a fabric store (you’ll see; I’ve done ok at Mood’s… sort of ok in terms of prints). I go for the wildest versions and forget that I’m not (yet) comfortable enough to wear those. ALSO I just LOVE new sewing patterns that much that Mr Hyde always tells me to ignore the fact that a couple of them are not too much me.

So, for the rest of the year, we’ll be doing things a little different. Outfits first; sewing follows (… remind me that I said that, will you!).

So here are a couple of patterns that I think will suit my autumn wardrobe sewing purpose.

 

White Russian by Capital Chic (for a sweater such as the one in the “Winter 14/15” picture above – third from the left):

–> not with the lion though.

The Alder Dress Pattern from Grainline Studio for the second dress on the left:

–> would love to have something like this (I have to say this since I already cut/glued the pattern and bought the PERFECT fabric at Mood’s)

AND / OR this:

 

As for potential other versions – the Wenona Shirt Dress by Named is pretty flirtatious, that little bugger.

–> because I just NEED another shirt dress, don’t I?

 

Also, another knit dress from SewCaroline would do me and the wardrobe good:

–> just not in yellow

 

And could this be a BHL Anna Dress alteration?:

 

For sure there are many more Hemlock Tees from Grainline Studio in the wardrobe plan:

 

And a Laurel Dress or two by Colette Patterns in knit (tried one, half happy; will share) – like those two:

 

What I won’t be able to resist is a bolder version of the Grainline Studio Archer Shirt:

–> I’m thinking (and already bought… uhum… ) Aztec print! And a version as this, just not in that colour:

So there it is – no revolution, just some more re-sew-lutions, no entirely new patterns (though excited for the White Russian and the Alder Shirt Dress that I haven’t tried before) but the clear plan to take a step back from the fabric store offerings and think more closely about that I really will wear (not what I want to wear but what I actually and truly WILL wear). The hint to the aztc print tells you; this will stay a challenge!

And now tell me; I cannot be the only Mr Hyde sewer out there! Or am I…?!