Austin fabric store reviews & sewing meetup awesomeness

Sewing meetup awesomeness at The Common Thread in Austin (with lots of love for stripes, clockwise from L): Me, Melissa of Melly Sews, Angela of So Made, Melizza of Pincushion Treats, Sara, Susan of Moon Thirty, and Susan of Miss Lulu Sews

So Austin turned out to be the perfect family vacation spot—and sewing mojo reboot inspiration. I somehow managed to attend four (!) sewing-related meetups in slightly over a week, sew a skirt, acquire an excessive amount of pretty new fabric, and even go to a crafty birthday party for Dixie (of Dixie DIY). (I must thank Susan for being the most amazing sewing hostess ever and for making all of this fun happen!)

Unrelated to sewing, I baked allergy-free bread, made homemade tamales on a hotplate, ate many tacos, met up with a cartoonist friend, swam in Barton Springs Pool and went on a movie date with my husband to the Alamo Drafthouse. It was a good time.

At The Common Thread a week earlier, with Dixie of Dixie DIY, Susan and Angela

My three-year-old daughter had some stitchy fun herself at the Thinkery children's museum:

And joined me for two of the sewing meetups. But I must say that one of the NON-highlights of the trip was her running around Stitched Fabric shop during a sewing club gathering, pins in hand, yelling "Poop soup!" and giggling maniacally, with me madly chasing behind. Sigh...

Austin fabric shopping is very different from the NYC fabric shopping to which I am accustomed. In Manhattan, I can stroll a few blocks over to the Garment District on my lunch break, and find myself in very large (and sometimes dim, dusty and crowded) stores, easily overwhelmed and at a loss for what I actually want or need. The selection is huge, but sometimes maybe a bit TOO huge.

In Austin, I had to get in a car (oh, GRRR, how I hate driving!) to reach the little shops I visited, but they were calmer, better-lit, more well-curated and had a more personal touch and intimate customer service approach than, say, Mood (not that I don't love Mood! but you know what I mean). I came away with some truly special and high-quality pieces that I can't wait to stitch into, especially the knits.

The Common Thread

• Location: 701 S Lamar Blvd, Austin, TX 78704
• Vibe: Relaxed, welcoming, elegant. A well curated selection of high-quality woven and knit fashion fabrics, including eco-friendly and organic fabrics in a range of fibers (even hemp and bamboo), and in styles from quirky and bold to elegant and refined. The fabric is beautifully displayed and there were lovely sample garments out for inspiration. Jeanie, the owner, was very welcoming, knew all the Austin sewists and seems to regularly host sewing meetups. Prices are fair, but this isn't a discount shop by any means (though there is a small sale/remnant rack in the back.)
• I couldn't resist: Riley Blake cotton/spandex gray and white polka dot knit and some lovely gray and white seersucker (the top top fabrics shown)...
  ...And this scant amount of Echino cotton/linen blend fabric. It was on sale, and there's barely enough for a straight skirt:
  

TexStyles Designer Fabric Showroom

Susan wishing she had a reasonable excuse to buy some $85/yard French silk charmeuse

• Location: 2605 Jones Rd Ste D Austin, TX 78745
• Vibe: One-of-a-kind designer fabric finds, from the over-the-top to the fancy, ranging from about $7/yard to much, much higher. Lots of great knits (including some fantastic sweater knits, which aren't easy to find), loud bold prints, bright colors and sequins. The fabric is packed in tightly on the racks and it's a small space, so a bit of hunting and digging is required to turn up gems.
• I couldn't resist: A yard of black and blue zig-zaggy knit print to make a fun tee.
  

  I also randomly got to meet Daniel Esquivel (of Project Runway fame) who was super friendly and showed us some fabric designs he was working on:

  

  On our second visit to the store, Little Z enjoyed grabbing the fabrics a little too much and I had to take her outside before she ruined anything:

  

Stitched Fabric (at the Austin Fabric Coop)

• Location: 6601 N Lamar Blvd, Austin, TX 78752
• Vibe: Knit paradise on earth. It is probably for the best that I don't live in Austin, as this place might be a problem for me. I have never before been in a shop where it was so painful to walk away without taking 90% of the store items home with me. There were knit stripes, and knit prints, and knit polka dots, all in good weights with excellent stretch and drape and recovery (something I struggle to find, even in New York). There were plenty of woven fabrics too, but I wasn't paying them much mind because the KNITS.
  

  AND there was a TARDIS door:

  AND I got to see some of the Cake Patterns envelopes I've illustrated at large in their natural sewing-shop habitat:

  

  The prices are fair (but not discount cheap) given the quality and there is a "free scraps" table with some surprisingly large scraps.

  
• I couldn't resist: Purple/gray/red thin-striped knit for a skirt (scroll up) and green and white polka dot knit (enough for a dress):
  

  Plus a good amount of wax print fabric from the free scraps table for a dress for the little girl.

We were so sad to leave Austin and all of our friends there (old and new), and I hope those of you attending Pattern Review weekend have a fantastic time!

P.S. Also while at the Thinkery, little Z and the husband and I had fun with a giant microscope to look at some different objects very closely including knit jersey fabric, corduroy fabric and my daughter's little plastic Princess Tiana doll:

Yarn & Fabric Shopping Overload + 2 Cardigans in Progress

Don't look at me like that, it was a birthday yarn shopping emergency!

Part 1: A Tale of Two Yarn Sprees

I've been TRYING to be a good little stash-buster. The first two tops I made last month were from the stash, as were my TARDIS socks AND the denim Hummingbird skirt I've almost completed.

And I deliberately chose the Delancey cardigan I'm knitting now to use up some lovely DK-weight merino I'd had lying around for over five years. Here's a progress shot (it is SO fun to knit, you start with two triangles and then join them to get the chevron effect going:)

But last weekend while riding the Bolt Bus to Boston with my husband and daughter, I reached into my purse for the Delancey AND IT WAS GONE (left at the office, thankfully, and not at the bus stop!). That meant two five hour bus rides WASTED and LACKING IN CARDIGANS.

Worst of all, it meant NO KNITTING on my BIRTHDAY, which was the following day. My husband came to the rescue, and gamely agreed to take me yarn shopping as a present.

Which is how, on my 33rd birthday, I ended up desperately pawing through the shelves of the...

Hub Mills yarn store (see photo at top) at the Classic Elite yarns distribution center in Billerica, Massachusetts.

When I was learning to knit in high school, Hub Mills (located in a scenic canal-side factory in downtown Lowell) was my Local Yarn Store, but although the new Billerica location isn't as nice, the yarns are still soft, colorful and yummy, there are lovely samples on display and the staff are super-helpful and knowledgeable. I came away with:

• Yarn, needles and pattern to make a Baby Surprise Jacket for my niece-or-nephew to be. This is Classic Elite Liberty Wool, a super-soft machine washable variegated worsted yarn with lots of colors in each ball, ideal for baby clothes:
  

  I've made a Baby Surprise Jacket before for my daughter, so knew it would be a quick fun bus-ride-worthy project.

• Kim Hargreaves' Hearfelt: The Dark House Collection book of 21 patterns.
  

  The book title is a bit over the top, but the patterns (see Ravelry for all of them) are just stunning (SO MANY PEPLUMS), so I'm not going to get too worked up.

My husband (man knows what I like) also got me a gift certificate to a local yarn store for Mother's Day. So today I went to:

La Casita Yarn Shop Café in Brooklyn.

This tiny little store and café/bar is just blocks from my home. It's jam-packed with all kinds of beautiful yarns from budget to super-fancy-expensive, some of them tucked into cookie jars and little baskets just to find space.

I especially love that they are so kid-friendly and even have kids' knitting classes and a kids' summer knitting camp. (I say this because I've had some unfortunate experiences with staff in another local yarn store that I won't name who were really rude to me and my daughter even though she hadn't touched a single skein).

Anyway, after some deliberation I bought:

• Enough yarn for my NEXT cardigan, Cherry by Anna Bell.

  I decided to make a candy pink Cherry, with a coral for the body and a slightly brighter fuschia for the ribbing and belt. The yarns shown are Sublime Baby Cashmere Merino Silk DK, a mostly merino superwash wool blend with a hint of cashmere and silk, and Filatura di Crosa Zara, a soft merino superwash. (I'm going to knit it extra-small to combat the growth properties of superwash).

  

Part 2: Mood Print Madness

Oh, and the fabric. Yeah. So I already have quite a bit of knit fabric, but I have a lot of summer tops and dress plans, and I'm getting a little sick of just solids, stripes and polka dots. So last month I went on a printed knit binge at Mood and got:

• A lovely monochrome purple-and-white rose print rayon/lycra jersey:
  
• Pink and purple chevrons! (also rayon/lycra jersey):
  
  The print of pure color chaos... I'm thinking a sleeveless Jalie scarf-collar top (I know, AGAIN).

  

• Not to mention the Hummingbird-esque fabric I used for my second Hummingbird top:
  
• And for slight balance, some soft stretchy double-knit (or ponte?) RPL for a Bonny top:
  

Phew! Confession time over. I think I have a lot of stash-sewing in my future before I can justify setting foot in a yarn or fabric store any time soon...

Sparkly Spandex Shopping Spree

I had a bit of a sparkle attack today in the Garment District while shopping for mother-daughter mermaid costume fabric. (For Saturday's 30th Anniversary Coney Island Mermaid Parade, and Z's upcoming mermaid-themed 2nd birthday party).

I didn't really have a firm idea for the costumes, only that the skirts should be scaly looking, and the tops should be more floaty/meshy/gauzy. So went to Spandex House and, was totally confused and overwhelmed by all the hologrammy sparkly sequiny spandex-ness of the place, and finally ended up with what you see above. The shell trims are from Pacific Trimming.

Anyone have any tips on sewing with really heavy-duty hologram spandex fabric? This stuff is THICK, and every time I stretch it, the sequiny sparkly bits crack! I'm guessing serging with wooly nylon will be the way to go here once I have the skirts basted together and fitted.

I think the skirts can just be elastic-waist tubes to the knee (or maybe a bit above for Z--I want her to be able to run around and have fun) with big gauzy/meshy flounces at the bottom. Kinda like the girl in the middle here with the pink top:

Source: coneyisland.com via Mikhaela on Pinterest

For the tops, I'm not so sure--the other fabrics I got are really sheer, so maybe I'll have to do a two-layer thing or put tank tops underneath for bra coverage (for me) and sun protection (for Z). Shell bras are not my thing. Here's my illustration of Z as a mermaid:

Once again, I think I'm just going to wing it, pattern-free! At least for the skirt--I might use one of her knit summer shirts as a rough guide for the top.

So why mermaids? Z has been obsessed with the parade and mermaids ever since she went to a live reading by Melanie Hope Greenberg of her picture book Mermaids On Parade.

I swear I'll get back to sewing something actually wearable in real life at some point, but whatever. Costumes are fun!

P.S. A few of the mermaid inspiration images I collected on Pinterest:

Source: google.com via Mikhaela on Pinterest

Source: picture-book.com via Mikhaela on Pinterest

Source: kishaskids.com via Mikhaela on Pinterest

Source: wolfandwillowblog.com via Mikhaela on Pinterest

Source: mermaidsofcolor.tumblr.com via Mikhaela on Pinterest

And randomly (for my costume idea, not Z's, of course): Bettie Page Mermaid...

Source: costumecraze.com via Mikhaela on Pinterest

Vote for Lowell Textile History in 3D! (and my amazing mom)

One of my mom's award-finalist 3D models of Lowell, Massachusetts: the Boott Mills complex on the Merrimack River. Part of this section is used as a museum dedicated to the history of the textile mill era in New England

Readers, my mom—and my textile-history-rich hometown, especially its schoolchildren!—need your help.

I may have mentioned my amazing mom Beryl Reid a time or two or three zillion. My mom is the kind of woman who can do ANYTHING. When she's visiting I might come home from work to discover she's reupholstered all the furniture in fabulous fabric with lovely piping, sewn up 67 cloth diapers and a bevy of baby carriers, repaired the bookshelf, designed several dozen intricate three-dimensional building models to appear on Google Earth and done some intense genealogical research--all while my daughter was napping after a fun-filled trip to the Central Park Zoo.

Well, maybe not all in one naptime. Anyway, I bring her to your attention once again because her Lowell collection--200+ three-dimensional models of buildings in my hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts, which you can see on Google Earth--is one of only 6 finalists worldwide in Google's "Model Your Town" contest. Guys and gals, this is a really big deal! And she needs YOUR vote to win! (You can vote here--make sure to click on her set of models before voting, or it'll accidentally vote for a different set).

What's the sewing connection? Seriously, it doesn't get more textile-tastic than Lowell.

• Lowell is a national historic park. Really, my hometown is a park, dedicated to American textile history. Everywhere you go, you'll see canals, old mill buildings, working trolleys, giant spindle sculptures... and that's because (from the park website):
  

  Source: teachingamericanhistorymd.net via Mikhaela on Pinterest

  Lowell’s water-powered textile mills catapulted the nation – including immigrant families and early female factory workers [Mikhaela note: the famous "mill girls"] – into an uncertain new industrial era. Nearly 200 years later, the changes that began here still reverberate in our shifting global economy. Explore Lowell, a living monument to the dynamic human story of the Industrial Revolution.

• Today, Lowell is the home of the American Textile History Museum and the New England Quilt Museum.
• Our minor league baseball team is called the Spinners, and the logo is... a spindle. Yes. We are serious about textiles.
• Typical class projects and field trips for Lowell public school students include: learning how to spin, weave and quilt.
• Knitters take note: until recently, Lowell was the manufacturing home of Classic Elite yarns... sadly their production has moved overseas and the Hub Mills factory outlet store I used to frequent when I was learning to knit is gone to a nearby town, too.

Also, if my mom wins, the prize is a donation of $25,000 to the Lowell public schools—very fitting, since my parents are both retired public school teachers, and my brother and I both attended the Lowell public schools. Lowell is a large, diverse working-class city made of up immigrants and their descendents from many eras, from the Irish workers who originally worked in the mills in the 1800s to Cambodian refugees who resettled in Lowell in the 1980s. And the schools could really use the funds.

So, please take a look at the contest--and if you like my mom's models of Lowell...

...please vote for her!

P.S. My husband and I had our wedding in Lowell, in a park right by one of the old boarding houses the mill girls used to live in:

5 Magic Awesome Reasons to Sew With Wool! (+ 2 Ways to Wash It)

Wool: sexy, hypnotic and magical! Don't be scared!

So last night I was leisurely handwashing the soft, blue and luscious Christian Dior doubleknit wool fabric I'm using for my Mad Men Challenge dress in a basin of tepid water and Eucalan...

And as I squeezed it very gently with my hands, that delicious lanolin smell wafted up to my nostrils and I thought: "Wow! I can't believe I ever was afraid of wool!"

In fact, before I started knitting with better-quality soft merino wools (thanks to the inspiring words of Elizabeth Zimmerman and The Yarn Harlot), I not only feared handwashing wool garments, I thought I was actually allergic to the stuff.* I even sought out acrylic and cotton yarns OVER wool. For real!

So in case you are still struggling with wool-o-phobia, I present (in random, arbitrary, unscientific fashion):

5 Reasons I Love Working With Wool

1. It keeps you warm but lets your skin breathe.
2. It resists odors, stains and bacteria, and rarely needs cleaning.
3. Wool kicks water to the curb and keeps you toasty and dry, absorbing up to 30 percent of its weight in water before even feeling wet. This is why I wear wool socks almost every day (except in the summer).
   
4. It comes in gazillions of beautiful colors and weights and styles to suit any taste. Slinky sexy soft merino wool jerseys, nubbly gorgeous sturdy tweeds and plaids, thin tropical wools, flattering drapey crepes...
5. It has amazing springiness and recovery and takes fabulously to pressing and steaming and shaping and fitting and tailoring (see Joan photo at top--do you think cotton can do that? I don't think so!)

Bonus Reasons For Crafty Mamas to Love Wool

1. Wool makes baby pee vanish. Like magic! Wool diaper soakers make the best cloth diaper covers because the lanolin in the wool does some weird tricky thing that actually just makes the urine go away as it dries. Really! (Not that I'm going to let Z pee on my Mad Men dress, mind you.) When Z was a newborn, I used the awesome and quick Sheepy Soaker pattern to make the below:
   
2. Wool fights embarrassing breastmilk leaks. I ONLY wear merino wool nursing pads (which I could have made easily, but bought--mine are LanaCare and OnGuard brands). I have a few pairs, and one dries while the other is in use. They are soft, warm, absorbent and dry, fight bacteria and don't feel cold and clammy, and can be easily handwashed as necessary.

2 Ways to Wash Wool

1. Handwash with gentle wool wash and tepid water. I use this method for all handknits and all my wool sweaters and wool knit tops. It's SO easy. Seriously. Just: fill a basin with tepid water, add a dash of wool wash (the real gentle lanolin-containing kind, like Eucalan, not Woolite or any harsh chemical ones) gently squeeze through, let soak 15 minutes, roll gently in a towel to remove excess water, lay flat to dry. DONE. No rinsing required!
2. Pam's Dry-Clean-free Fast & Easy pre-treatment method. I haven't tried this yet, but many sewists swear by it, and I love that no dry cleaner is required! Though I'm not clear on whether occasional dry-cleaning would still be required once a garment is actually worn--my guess is yes.

And as they used to say on Reading Rainbow, don't just take my word for it!

Nothing beats wool. It's an extraordinary material—annually renewable and recyclable—with infinite potential. It can be wispy and sensual when it wants to be, it can be gruff and powerful, it can put out fires and keep families warm at night, it can be stepped on, sat under, rained on, and wrapped up in again and again.
--Clara Parkes, author of The Knitter's Book of Wool

So: do you fear--or embrace--wool? And why? What's your favorite source for buying wool fabric?

*Mohair, on the other hand--that stuff turns my skin bright red in SECONDS. Yowch!

$1 a yard, pt. 2: Things I have made with cheap fabric!

Polyester polka dot overload, circa 2005.

Since cheap fabric was such a popular topic with y'all, I thought I'd follow up with a few things I've made with cheap fabric...

But first, I can't believe I forgot:

Another cheap fabric PRO: Bragging rights.

Because when someone says "oh, I LOVE your skirt/dress/trousers/culottes/sequined jumpsuit", what could be more fun than saying:

1. "Oh this? I got it at the thrift store for $2."
2. Except maybe "Oh this? I made it."
3. Or better yet: "Oh this? I made it with some $2 fabric from the thrift store."

Anyway:

Some things I have made with cheap fabric:

• A $2/yard polka dot poly skirt (Simplicity 5914), from Fulton Fabrics in Brooklyn. Made it in 2005, still wear often. Super fast, super fun (photo at top of post).
• A superfast and satisfying $3/yard spiral knit print from Sew-Fisticated Discount Fabrics in Boston poly maternity skirt from a non-maternity pattern (Kwik Sew 3513). Wore it to oblivion while pregnant and postpartum, but it's way too big now (and rather pilly):
  
• A $1.50/yard full gingham self-drafted maternity skirt. Obviously unwearable at the present time. (And yes, I am pale as a corpse, but I'm cool with that.)
  

I was not struck down by any sewing deities as a result. They weren't the nicest things I've ever made... but they weren't the un-nicest, either. And I think full-ish skirts are generally a better bet with cheap un-breathable fabrics since they don't cling to your skin as much as tops.

More lovely cheap fabrics in my stash (not featured in the previous post)

• Soft 100% cotton purple 70s-style floral apparel fabric, $2.99/yard. (Sew-Fisticated Discount Fabrics)

  
• African-style cotton wax prints, $1.99/yard (Sew-Fisticated again). No idea if these were made in the Netherlands or West Africa or China, but they're really soft and seem to be of good quality--I think the fishies will make a lovely simple sundress for my daughter, and the leaves/floral could be a Bombshell dress for me. (See also post and discussion at Miss Celie's Pants, "The curious history of 'tribal' prints.")
  
• $1/yard stretch cotton sateen from ridiculous Fabric Mart Fabrics online sale in 2010 (shown in hand, see also "In Defense of Orange"):
  
• $2/yard iridescent purple poly/cotton shirting from "It's a Material World" (257 W. 39th St.).
  
• $3/yard super-soft lightweight turquoise cotton/lycra blend from Modeani (was across the street from "It's a Material World", but gone now, I think).
  
• $3/yard B&W polka dot ombre-effect poly matte jersey (Sew-fisticated. Again!):
  

And finally... a few cautionary words of sad warning on...

The perils of sewing with cheap fabric

:

So, remember how I said the discount Denver Fabrics wool-blend navy jersey in my color-blocked Sew Grateful Skirt was tissue-thin?

Yeah, well, the second time I wore my skirt--even with a slip--the thinnest spots began turning into runs, like the kind you get in cheap nylon stockings.

This makes me incredibly sad, but I'm not sure whether darning is even worth it, the fabric is so thin in places. I don't know how I could really reinforce it without taking the whole thing apart, either. SUCH a bummer, because I love the look of it!

Sometimes, you get what you pay for.

So, let's hear your bragging--what's the cheapest thing you've made--and still gotten compliments on?