Garment District

I spent yesterday morning gallivanting around New York to get more supplies for my project as well as experience the intense fabric buying situation there.  Endless amounts of fabric.  Literally, endless.  I finally found the dark green jersey of my dreams at Spandex House (not to offend the other fabrics, there was also a Polyester House and a Silk House...), and came back with some other random fabric goodies as well (my dad bought two yards of a spandexy crushed velvet in our favorite color, plumberry...he's apparently making a scarf, but I think I'll steal some and maybe make a clutch...!)

plumberry velvet and tons of mesh spandex

some fancy loom/stretching machine thing

sooooo many zippers to play with

that dark purple fabric made me want a pattern for a sari

After that, we ventured to about a zillion stores filllllled with trimmings. Imagine anything you could ever possibly put on a garment, necklace, or hairpiece--they have it.  The first couple stores were incredibly overwhelming, but I eventually found the fake jewel of my dreams...it's so perfect for shoulder embellishments...

sooo many plastic gems

overwhelming

feathers!

finally found them! (they need a little polish...)

Lastly, we made a stop in a leather shop.  The place is on the eleventh floor of this random almost high rise, and the actual shop space was the size of a small studio apartment.  The owner was so nice, but he wouldn't let me take any pictures, because a lot of the patterns there they create and print onto the leather themselves.  I held real python in my hands, and cried over little mini chinchilla pelts.  They were really excited about me purchasing something, but I really just stopped in to get a feel for the place.  Despite my aversion to fur, I have to admit it was pretty freaking cool.

Today was quieter.  I spent it redoing the seam allowances on most of my patterns (I got kinda sloppy with them the first time around) and sketching more concrete plans for jewelry.  I'm planning on a more successful jaunt to Michael's tomorrow...and Sunday we make allllll the muslins (ideally...)

(sorry for the delay on this one, blogger had a melt down and through everything into read mode for a day...)

More soon!