by Sherri Sylvester | Jun 29, 2013
Thanks for letting me skip Monday’s post this week! A lot has changed in our home, good changes that will hopefully allow me more time to spend here, and less late nights trying to catch up!
Last Saturday I got to go fabric shopping with two friends in Hamilton, Ontario. Ottawa Street is a fabric destination for sewers and home decorators in Southern Ontario, Canada. This trip was originally going to be a bit larger Sewing Club trip – but it ended up that only 3 out of our 8 or so members could come out. Next time we will have to plan ahead earlier – and maybe not so close to the summer break!
I have been to Ottawa Street a few times now, but this trip was the best by far. Aside from going with like-minded friends, it was nice for all of us (with little kids) to have an all day break from our regular routine. I was able to get quite a bit of really great fabric, and most of it at amazing prices! Besides, a street that uses thimbles and buttons in their park’s decor can’t be bad!
European Textiles is a favorite stop – they have two stores – a home decorating centre and also an apparel and quilting fabric store. They both have an amazing (mostly) modern print selection. Their second store has a wide selection of well laid out modern quilting cotton prints – Joel Dewberry, Tula Pink, Michael Miller, Amy Butler, Robert Kaufman, Riley Blake (and the list goes on…) and Kona cotton solids. They also have imported Italian wool and other suiting fabrics, voile, fleece, stretch and dance costume fabrics and Pellon products like interfacing and fusible fleece. Their pricing is great, and about $2 per metre less than my local quilting stores.
Two doors down is Discount Fabrics. We almost walked past this one, but were happily surprised when we went inside. They had a wide variety of Michael Miller (and some others) quilting cotton at half the price of European Textiles! Most of the rest of the day conversation kept turning back to wondering how they were able to afford to do this! While the selection was not as great, we stashed up on some of our favorites that, previous to now, we had only seen online in US based fabric shops. I also got some broadcloth solids that I like to use for lining little shirts and dresses. Seems I never have enough solids!
Nova Sewing Centre is full of machines, ribbons, trims, elastic, thread and notions of all kinds. I love the vintage-looking ribbons I was able to pick up – including the football one “for my husband”! Any ideas of what I should make with it for him?!
Across the street in Ottawa Textiles we loved the amazing selection of home decor fabrics. I should have taken a photo of the tree/bird fabric I would have loved to make curtains from for my daughters’ playroom! I did pick up a few half-yards to make some couch cushions – though I’m not certain if it isn’t outdoor fabric. Does any one know how to tell the difference? The weave is courser than most indoor home decor fabric and one of them says it is water resistant on the selvage. Either way – I love these prints!
At the end of our trip we stopped in the two-story Fabricland (for those of you who don’t live in Canada, it’s similar JoAnn’s). The second story has $4.00 a metre finds and I was able to get some knits I’ll use for kid’s nightgowns, jeggings and another Dolman tee for me!
The ladies I went with were nice enough to come with me across town to Ann’s Fabric Shop. I’m working on a bathing suit for my oldest – and hopefully one for my youngest after that. I found a tutorial for a bathing suit based on Figgy’s Scirocco Dress and wanted to try it out. Kate on Facebook was nice enough to tell me about Ann’s Fabric Shop. Their website says they are one of Canada’s best kept secrets and they aren’t kidding! They have a HUGE selection of dance, skating and swim wear fabric. I asked where the swimwear was located and was led to two aisles packed on both sides with bolt after bolt of options. Just guessing there must have been over 500 different prints, and every solid colour under the sun to match to them! I’m hoping to finish the suit soon because my oldest desperately needs a new one – she seems to be going through a growth spurt right now.
Only problem with my trip is that now I have no excuse to go to the fabric store! Not even a little one… though I might need some solids to mix with the prints I got… (!)
Where is your fabric shopping “best find”? Please share! A reader near you might not know about a fabulous shop you love.
by Sherri Sylvester | Jun 10, 2013
Don’t forget – today is the last day to enter to win a free pattern from Among Brenda’s Quilts. Visit this post and scroll to the bottom to enter. The giveaway ends at 10pm tonight!
Near the end of last year I was happy to find out that I had quite a few friends that were sewing on a regular basis, so we started a little Sewing Club (for lack of a better name!) that meets about once a month. We had a meeting a few weeks ago and one of my friends suggested that I try to sign up to test some patterns for Heidi&Finn. I checked them out and they have some really cute kids patterns. The latest is the Tennis Skort (coming soon) and I’m glad I could test this one.
Heidi&Finn – Tennis Skort Pattern
I am super pleased with the results – and so are my kids! Thank goodness I have enough knit left over to make a 5T version for my oldest as well. This pattern goes together quickly, despite my not having a serger (yet?!). The steps are well explained and it has lots of photographs. The style is so versatile – each layer of the skirt can use a different fabric – making it really fun to play around with! I love that it is a skort as well. The shorts underneath are perfect for a trip to the park! I think too many little girls are running around in skirts these days that don’t know how to sit properly in them. At least this way you can let them feel like a princess and still be sure they are modest at the same time. What do you do when your little girls want to wear skirts all the time?
Since I needed to make this in a week I got to buy some fabric (yay!) and headed out to my local Fabricland store. Amazingly, since they don’t usually stock it, they had some Michael Miller knits available! I ended up with this pink/yellow pattern by Patty Young, part of her Heaven and Helsinki line. The fabric is AMAZING to work with. It is a stretch cotton blend jersey knit fabric with a 4-way stretch. The fabric is super-soft too. I was worried that the 4-way stretch would make it harder to sew, but it was no different than the regular medium weight jerseys I’ve worked with before. The yellow stripe on the top skirt was very thin and needed a bit more care – but I really like the contrast with the pink – so I’m glad I took the extra time to use it. What do you do to help stop the fabric from stretching when sewing knits? I know lots of readers who are scared to sew with knit that could really benefit from your tips and tricks!
We had so much fun on this photo shoot! The weather finally co-operated yesterday, since it has decided to seem more like very-early-spring here instead of almost-summer. Grandma let us borrow her tennis racket and we headed off to a nicely hidden group of courts near our house. Thankfully there were not too many people there! We took over the end court and my youngest asked me “Mommy, how do you use this thing?” as she attempted to use the racket more like a hockey stick – though (thankfully) not hitting the ground with it!
My experience with this pattern was so good I will be back to Heidi&Finn soon to get some more patterns. I’ve got my eye on their Summer Maxi Dress pattern, or maybe the Colorblock dress? I can’t decide… what do you think? Is there another pattern from them that I should try? Maybe I should use some of the fabric I won from Whimsical Fabrics?
Here’s your chance to let your opinion count, Thread Riding Hood Commenter’s cheques are in the mail every third Friday of the month! (Hee, Hee!) Either way, I reply back to EVERYONE (generally through email, but sometimes on the post). We’d all like to hear what YOU have to say!
by Sherri Sylvester | Apr 18, 2013
First off, we had the third meeting of our sewing club last Saturday night. Hooray! We’re planning another one for the end of May and maybe I can convince everyone to come on a field trip to our nearest “fabric district” with me in June. It’s been so much fun getting together with everyone and being able to talk all about SEWING! I still can’t get over how fun it is when you find people who enjoy doing what you enjoy doing!
For this meeting those who wanted worked on making a Peek-A-Boo Toy Sack. I recently talked about Toni’s great tutorial from Make It Perfect here. These bags are addictive! I cut enough fabric to make 3 of them and it was amazing how quickly they came together (it helps that I have made 6 or 7 of them in the past!) Here are all of our finished products!
This camouflage print is really fun. We all kept talking about how it reminds us of G.I. Joe. It would be perfect to hold the figures as well. Love the retro feel with the brown dot fabric Laura used on the casing.
Love this print too! fabricworm happens to have this one on sale (go and get it!) – it is Birch Fabrics Organic, Mod Squad, Rally in Pool/Grass. Oh, and it comes in Cream/Coral too! The bag looks great with the stripes on the back. Jenn was able to make the whole thing with several fat quarters.
Just as an aside – this (below) is my all time favorite scooter print. I used it to make a lunch bag, and I’ve got a tiny bit left just waiting for the perfect project. Can you find the bird sitting on the scooter seat? Too CUTE! And it is still available at fabricworm – here.
Image courtesy of www.monaluna.com
My toy sacks need a bit of explaining because it looks like I forgot what “trendy fabric” is! The black dot is a large piece from my stash that I hadn’t been able to find a project for as yet. The binding and casings are happy scrap busters from the finished edge of a piece of fabric, folded just the right way. The elephant fabric is a print of one of my favorite childhood Little Golden Books – The Saggy Baggy Elephant. I finally found a project for it, and I really like the stripey casing.
The third is special, and has a story. My husband took the girls to our local fabric store at Christmas and each picked out a “fabric for Mommy”. This one is made out of the fabric my youngest picked out! Despite it’s dubious beginnings – I actually like the bag. It turned out okay, and might be the perfect place to store our dress up clown costume! I can’t wait until our next meeting in May!
And… new and exciting things are happening at Thread Riding Hood!
I’ve finally signed up for a Thread Riding Hood Facebook page. Come on over and like me (pretty please?!) Follow along (click on the logo below for the link)and get updates on posts, questions and answers from tutorial comments and great links to other wonderful sewing stuff going on around the web.
And, with a sad goodbye to Google Reader – which is going to shut down on July 1st, I signed up for Bloglovin. Turns out I didn’t need to be sad at all! This is a great little invention that emails you when your favorite bloggers put up new posts. The emails are really well designed with photos from the new posts and arrive based on your settings – once a day, or whenever a new post shows up. It’s a really good way to keep track of all of your reading. And (bonus!) it will import your blogs straight from Google Reader if you’re already on there. So, click the logo and follow Thread Riding Hood (you know you want to)!
In other news, my husband is having knee surgery tomorrow. So I may or may not be posting anything this weekend – family trumps all! I will be back for sure on Monday with something fun! Have a wonderful end of your week. Lately I have been feeling that “happy spring” feeling you get when the weather starts to warm up! (thank goodness!)
