Thursday, November 15, 2007

Better Late than Never – the PR Weekend Review

Somehow, when I walked into the Milford Plaza lobby and saw Kathy, Connie and Kim, and a few other familiar faces, it didn’t matter that I was still half-asleep. Fabric was on the horizon: how much better could it get?

We met up with the rest of the ladies and headed out. First stop was Mood, where I wasn’t going to buy any fabric. They’re too expensive, and it was only the first store. So I only bought two cuts of shirting fabric, both for Mario, because he requested “non-traditional shirting.” Be careful what you wish for. (On the other hand, “non-traditional shirting” is a pretty articulate request from a guy who didn’t know the difference between one fabric and another before he met me.)

We made a brief stop at Pacific Trims, which blew M&J and Daytona completely out of the water as far as I was concerned. That place is a candy store! I bought trim, buttons, buckles, fasteners, and more trim. And I went back again later for a 12” separating zipper.Then it was off to Leather, Suede, Skins. I really liked Global Leathers last year, and got a very nice deal on some leather I was afraid to sew with for months. This year I decided I was ready to make myself a leather jacket. LSS supplied 40 square feet of buttery black lambskin (price started at $180, then went to $155, finally purchased at $128), plus some remnants of a wonderfully awful (or awfully wonderful, depending on your taste) snakeskin printed leather. That’s definitely a bag in the making.

After that, we went to see wonderful Kashi at Metro Textiles. This wasn’t my most productive trip, though you can’t tell from the amount of fabric I bought. I was going to let him ship it (and my previous purchases), but since Monday was a holiday, I knew I probably wouldn’t get my fabric until Wednesday, and I could have it all washed and ironed by then. Kashi supplied me with a wonderful silk scarf square to line my leather jacket, some striped linen (looks like vintage dishtowels!), a pink and cream lightweight coating for a Christmas present jacket, a brown with pink embroidery that wants to be a skirt, a great turquoise/green/gold and brown stretch knit, and the most amazing trim I’ve ever seen. I bought 6 yards of it without a purpose, but it was only $3 per yard.

We broke for lunch at 1:00 p.m. at the Times Deli. Trena and Cidell caught up to us there and Trena and I got to do our BWOF swap and I gave her some too-small vintage patterns that have been taking up space in my drawer. It felt good to be surrounded by fellow fabric mavens and to know that they understood why I had so many bags that they filled up their own chair!

Beginning to drag a little, but never too tired for Paron. I love the Annex – I hardly ever buy anything in the full price section. I found a wonderful semi-sheer floral in shades of orange in the $2 bin, then I got stretch twill in both black and a wonderful dark chocolate brown, and finally I bought a bottom-weight in gray with tiny broken stripes of black, brown and tan. One of those three fabrics is going to be the jumper from BWOF 10/2007.

I made it through Spandex House without a purchase, though I did have a nice rest on the 2nd floor, sitting and leaning against a few bolts of stretch velvet. I’ve still got a lot of stretch at home and I’m trying to get back into working with wovens because it requires more focus and the kind of detail work that I’ve been trying to avoid. Deepika seems to be on the same kick. She asked, “Does this mean I’m growing up?” Maybe we are, at least a little.

Last stop, Rosen & Chadick. I wasn’t buying anything. I was exhausted, thirsty, and shopped out, and I could barely lift my bags anymore. But they had such a fabulous selection, and Preston was so sweet and helpful that I bought one cut of shirting, this time for me – olive and gold with tiny stripes of red. Just my colors. And then I went in the back and sat on the floor again.

We re-fueled at Starbuck’s – peppermint mocha, yummm. But my 3½ hours of sleep had finally caught up to me. After coffee and some show & tell, and Deepika trying on my woolly mammoth coat, I headed off to Penn Station and caught the train home.

If this had been any other event, I would have probably blown it off, but no way was I missing PR Weekend. I had such a fabulous time, shopping and comparing fabrics and talking to so many great like-minded women. A day like that lasts a long time.

2 comments:

Kat said...

Okay, Karen. What I want to know is how I missed the Starbucks trip? A caffeine pick-me-up would have done me good for the pizza party for sure. I love reading PR members personal experiences of the trip too. It's like reliving it again. Off to take my pictures from my Metro Textile order that was shipped...

Carolyn (Diary of a Sewing Fanatic) said...

I am sorry that I am just getting around to reading your review...and then again I'm not...because it made me think that I could catch the subway down to 40th Street at lunch time and do a stroll through Parons...ACK! What am I thinking! *LOL* Glad you had a good time!