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Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Happy Birthday Pattern Review!

On Friday, November 7, PatternReview.com celebrated its 13th year!  The celebration began with a tour of the McCall's Patterns office in New York City with a party afterwards at Elliott Berman Textiles, 225 W. 35th Street, 7th floor, NYC.

But first, Kyle of Vacuuming the Lawn and I got together for lunch and then shopping.  Our first stop was Metro Textiles, 265 W. 37th Street, Suite 908, where Kashi was more than happy to help us select fabrics (thanks for the photo Kyle).

Kyle is wearing Vogue 1351
We then visited Botani Trims, 263 W. 36th Street.  They have a large selection of zipper pulls you can have installed.  At Botani, you tell them the length of the zipper, color and what type of pull and they will build it from scratch for you but be prepared to pay good money for it.  (They also have a large selection of hardware, buckles, studs, etc.)



Kyle was happy to find some square snaps at Botani:

Square snaps - yay!

Then off to the McCall's tour located at 120 Broadway in New York City.  The lobby of the building is magnificent.  It was huge with incredibly high ceilings.  All of the lobby was marble kept in pristine condition.  In fact, the building has been designated a federal historical landmark.  Just look at the beautiful ceiling (wow):



Kathy Wiktor was our gracious host at McCalls.  In the photo below, she is talking to us about the editorial room.  Behind her are pages and ideas for an upcoming issue of Vogue Patterns magazine.  On the table are black goody bags McCall's generously gave to each of us.  Each bag had a magazine, pattern and informational sewing materials.


Kathy also took us to the room where they have photo shoots for the magazine.  Besides the camera equipment (of course), we saw a long table full of jewelry, accessories and shoes, on loan from the designers, to be used for an upcoming photo shoot. We also saw a cute little make-up room.



The hallways were adorned with beautiful original fashion artwork:


THANK YOU McCALL'S!

After the tour, the group headed off to the party held at Elliott Berman Textiles.  They sure know how to throw a party!  There was music, wine, snacks, games and prizes.  


Kyle and Awilda

The best part for me was mingling with all of the fabulous sewists like the wonderful Deepika, founder of PatternReview.com:

Deepika is wearing the PatternReview Winter Street dress

and Anna Mazur, editor of the Pattern Review column of Threads magazine and author of the recently published book, Handbag Workshop (thanks for the 2 photos below Anna!):

I am wearing Vogue 1036

and the fabulous editors of Threads magazine:


and Carol (in her beautiful pink sheath dress) and Peter of Male Pattern Boldness:


A bonus to having a party in a fabric store is that we could do some fabric shopping, which made Anna very happy!


THANK YOU Elliott Berman Textiles and a BIG THANKS to Deepika for founding Pattern Review!  It is a wonderful site which provides a valuable service to the sewing community.



PS:  I added all of the links above in case readers want more information.  I have no affiliate relationships.

Sunday, November 2, 2014

Truth be told

What a beautiful top!  You made that?!  It's gorgeous!  You look great in that top.  It's like sooo totally  flattering.  Fits you perfectly.  Dahling…you look fahbuuulous!

Screeeeeech!  Beep!

Wow…there's a lot of fabric bunching up under your arm in the wrong place.  Do you really want a seam across your chest?  It looks like you have uni-boob.  I vote no!

Nothing like a muslin and honest sewing friends to wake me up!  I was planning on making Vogue 8721, View B for a party I will be attending in December.  I was going to make it in a beautiful red silk, imported from Italy, I purchased from NY Elegant Fabrics in NYC.  It has a really nice texture and drape to it.  I don't remember how much I paid for it, but I do remember thinking when I purchased it that it was pricey.

I love the design.  I am drawn to the unusual shape of it.  However, and unfortunately, that unusual shape does not work for me.  The model on the pattern envelope looks beautiful in it but I am no model!  I am short and busty.




I could work on making adjustments to make it fit better but I don't like it enough on me to make it for the party.  I may visit it again in the future though.

So I am happy to discover in the muslin stage that this top will not work for what I had intended.  Best of all, I have spared my expensive fabric.  

My search continues….