Thursday, July 9, 2015

G Street Fabrics and demise of clothing fabric stores

Well, I guess it had to happen. G Street Fabrics is closing both of it's stores in Virginia. The only remaining one will be Rockville. Honestly, three interstate highways to get there will probably make it too tough to attempt on a regular basis. Centerville was on my way home from work with a minor detour.


For those of us who love to sew clothes this will be a bit of a problem. We have an amazing amount of quilt shops around here but the clothing fabric stores are on the downslide. We lost Fabrics Unlimited in Arlington, Couture Fabrics in Alexandria, Curran Square Fabrics in McLean and now this. Exquisite Fabrics, formerly in DC is now in Culpepper, VA.


Guess it's time to go check out A Fabric Place in Baltimore and take a trip to Culpepper to check Exquisite Fabrics new digs. And there's Sew Smart Fabrics in Scranton, when I'm up there, to check out. After boating season that is. And Manhattan is only two hours from the lake house so there is the Fashion District there.


And I guess online will be the other option. I like when I know there's a brick and mortar attached although I know that's not always the case.

Wednesday, July 8, 2015

And idea for Jeans and how it went

I entered these into a jeans contest and of course I didn't win. I'm never optimistic about winning because the group of people who enter are extremely creative. The fun thing is looking at what they do and stealing ideas for the future!


The base pattern I used was one I self drafted. I took several classes in drafting and decided I needed to give it a shot. I did use my Bernina My Label jeans pattern for things like pockets, yokes and other details. I looked a Jalie 2908 for reference for the cut of the legs.


For fabric I used this really nice denim from G Street Fabrics. It was 97% Cotton and 3% Lycra so not a whole lot of stretch. I did buy some stretchier denim from Mood but I'll be I'll be using it to try out the Jalie pattern in the future. I was suspicious it wouldn't meet the 95 Cotton 5 Lycra requirement.

This is the front:


This is the back:




I had this fairly nice soft black leather blazer with a torn arm. So far I've cannibalized it to make details in a hounds tooth skirt and for the yoke and pocket trim on these pants. 

I recently bought this snap press from KamSnaps as well as pliers to remove snaps that don't work out.
Wow is this thing heavy! Of course I got it in powder blue! I find the bottom of snaps work quite well as rivets.  I used the leather as trim for the pockets:

I interfaced the leather with a medium weft interfacing and lined it with the same fabric I used for the pockets:


My embroidery for the back pocket and front and back leg was Dressed in Damask from Emblibrary. I've used it before and I just love how elegant it is. My Bernina B780 embroidered this denim very easily.




My topstitch thread was from Wawak. It's a huge spool and I'm sure I'll eventually have to figure out who to will it to! It's enough for several generations!


My setting for the picture was the dock of my Mother in Law's house in Cocoa Beach, Florida. I love water as a backdrop! And this was a nice break from Winter. These were taken in March and WOW that was a wild month in Pennsylvania! However, when I got back to Virginia Spring has seemed to arrive.