The big day had finally come...NYC FABRIC SHOPPING and meeting up with two of my favorite blogger friends,
Carolyn &
Sheila. Alethia and I woke up bright & early Friday just beside ourselves with glee. We were anticipating a grand day and let me tell you the day unfolded beautifully. On this day we started out with coffee from one of Alethia's favorite coffee shops then took an express bus into NYC. We stopped in at M&J Trims, this place was just brimming with some of the most beautiful trims & buttons of every kind imaginable. I was so overwhelmed I totally forgot to take pictures but here's a link
M&J Trims I didn't buy a thing but believe me I will know where to go online for the perfect unique BLING for a garment. We stopped in at a couple books stores. One was the international bookstore that Carolyn has mentioned on her blog before. They have tons of fashion related books and magazines. I can't remember the name of it but if you are ever looking for it, it's right across the street from the famous "Bryant Park"
(made famous on Project Runway), I'm sure someone could direct you there. We also went to a Japanese book store that carries some of the Japanese sewing books & magazines you may have seen on a few blogs, it's also not far from Bryant Park. We stopped in a couple fabric stores as we made our way to
"Metro Textiles".
Finally we got there and immediately enjoyed touching and drooling over fabric as we made decisions about which fabric would leave the store with us. We kept Mr. Kashi quite busy and jubilant measuring up our selections. Then suddenly coming through the door was none other than Carolyn. What a pleasure it was to finally get to meet her in person. She couldn't help but notice the piles of fabric Alethia and I had amassed in the short period of time that we'd been there. Just moments later in came Sheila, the four of us just had a ball in that store. Here we are with Mr. Kashi
I had my fabric shipped to my work address. I got it today at work and needless to say I couldn't keep my mind on work, I just wanted to go home. I endured the torture of having the fabric in my office and not able to play with it. At 5:30 I flew to my car and quickly but safely drove home. Ok, enough suspense here's what I got...
This gorgeous piece of fine silk crepe, This was the most expensive piece but I had to have it, Ok don't drool...HA! I hesitated on this one for a moment but was strongly encouraged by Carolyn. I would have been a fool to leave this behind, I'd been looking for the perfect orange fabric for a dress and this is defiantly it,
To top it off I'll use this piece as a shawl with the the orange silk
This is a piece of silk also, yes, had to have it...
I'm not sure of the content of this fabric but it's enough for a couple pairs of pants and a skirt, The pen is there because my camera needed something to focus on...
Oh, yes and had to have this too, not sure of the content, I think it's a cotton/poly blend, this will be great as a jacket and I might be able to squeeze a skirt out of it too but I won't wear them together, that would be too much on me.
This one will be a tunic or maybe a dress, it's a knit jersey,
I love this one...Ok I love them all but can't you see this as a jacket. It's a cotton sateen with a bit of stretch.
Not sure of the content on this one but I love polka dots, this is a light weight kind of crepe or something (hard to describe) but this will make a cute top to wear with a white skirt or pants.
Whew, that's the damage I did at Metro Textile Fabrics. I simply had a ball and now I've got to recover and get busy planning my projects.
After leaving Metro, Carolyn took us over to "Daytona Braids & Trimmings, she got us settled in and headed back to work. Then Alethia, Sheila & I stopped at another fabric store (couldn't resist) then we headed off to "Juniors" for lunch and spend the rest of our visit together chatting about sewing, fabric, projects & techniques we've tried. After lunch we parted ways and seemingly skipped off to our destinations. I must say from start to finish my trip to NYC was inspiring, exciting and just the spark I needed. We will have to do that again and next time I'll look up all the NJ/NY sewing friends out there that want to join us, the more the merrier.
I will be working on a muslin shell & sloper I think that will also help me with TNT's. Then I will be planning what to do with my new treasure trove of beautiful fabric. No breath holding please, but stay tuned, LOL.
Happy Sewing!!
These were quick and easy and fun to make. 
then I folded the fabric in layers and traced the template with white chalk & cut several layers at once. I did mine with print fabric on one side and a solid on the other
Then I serged the edges...some in red, some green and some gold embroidery thread.
There are several way to finish the edges but this was the quickest
Here's a link to one set of instructions if you would like to add embroidery Christmas Tree Napkins, I also have another PDF of instructions that are a bit simpler (the one I used) without embroidery but I I don't know how to post the PDF. So, if you'd like that set of instructions send me an email. I'm going to make a few more this week and I'll be pretty much set for Christmas.
Well here's the top, it's almost done. 
All I have to do is the hem on the bottom and the sleeves. Problem however, I'm just not sure I like it...but I'm going to finish it and if nothing else I'll wear it around the house on the weekends. I tried to add some interest by also using the border on the sleeves,
and around the neckline
I bought the fabric from Adrienne @ 
While I'm waiting I used a skirt pattern, Butterick-B5466 for the skirt sloper.
