Thanksgiving week notes

Blogland has been busy this past week! I am slowly catching up with reading everyone's posts, and trying to get back into the sewing groove myself. I spent the past week in the San Francisco Bay area, here are a few notes:

1. My niece was born on Tuesday :) About a week earlier than expected. This meant that Tim and I were able to meet her in person and spend her first Thanksgiving with her. I'm not posting any paparazzi photos of her at this time, but take my word for it, she's adorable.

2. My sister-in-law, who is also a seamstress, took me to a couple of wonderful stores in Berkeley. Fortunately I brought the Butterick 5316 pattern (my new years eve dress) along with me on this trip just in case an opportunity like this came up :) (Little did we know during this outing that in another 24 hours she would be in labor. Good thing we went fabric shopping when we did.)


Our first stop was Stonemountain and Daughter. Okay. I want to move to Berkeley and get a job working in this store. The fabric selection is amazing! I wasn't able to decide on any of the silk prints for my dress, so I settled on a solid silk charmeuse in a jewel tone purple. Although I had promised myself I'd stick to fabric/notions for the new years gown, I couldn't resist picking up a little something else. They have a great selection of knits - I was drawn to this black/white/mustard print.

Next stop, Lacis. What an incredible selection of trims, ribbons, beads, lace, embroidery, millinery supplies, etc, much of it vintage. My primary goal here was to find trim for the shoulder straps of my new years eve gown. I selected this silver rick rack style trim, and I also got enough to use as a belt. My SIL told me there is a special room of laces, trims, etc in which you must be escorted and wear gloves to protect anything that you touch. She got lace for her wedding veil here.

3. Remember the two knits in my recent post "One Sunday, Two Garments"? Well, I like the two garments so much, I decided to morph them. I used the Burda 8771 dress pattern and replaced the collar with the cowl neck from BWOF 10-2005-114. The fabric is a camel color wool jersey that I got a couple months ago at the Pacific Fabric Outlet. I made this right before we left for the trip, and here I am modeling it at a walkway in the Oakland Airport on our way home on Friday.

My sewing machine is going to be ready to pick up from its regular checkup/cleaning on Monday. Since the shop closes before Tim gets home (and we have just one car which he drives to work), I reserved a car with Flexcar so I can pick up my machine in the evening. There are two vehicles parked a few blocks from my house, and they just switched out the minivan for a Mini Cooper! Look out, Seattle.