Sweet Home Chicago

Wow, what a trip! 

Before going, I wasn't 100% sure if I would like NYC - I'm a gal who (despite a love of architecture) generally prefers the country.  But I LOVED it!  What a varied and vibrant city!  I will say this though - having experienced Manhattan for a week made me feel like I live in a small town again!  Not a bad feeling to have!

My trip was made all the better by a whole lot of bloggy get-togethers and some very nice fabric acquisitions.  It took me a while to narrow my pictures down, but even so, this is going to be a mega-post.   Let's take things chronologically.  For the sake of brevity, I'm only mentioning the bloggy stuff!

Saturday:
I attended the Workroom Social Pop-Up Party!  I met so many lovely people, some of whom I "knew" and some who were new to me.  You can find a lot of great pictures on Jennifer's blog here.  They even had a table with nail art going on!  Gah!

I wore the Scout Tee I'd made the week before.  I felt sparkly and glamorous, but HOT!  It was hot in the venue, and my tee was very heavy with 2 layers of fabric.  Plus, I'm an old lady ;-)

Sunday:
I finally got to meet Shar!  She and her family drove in to the city from their home about 2 hours away to spend part of the day with me.  What an honor!  Of course, we used the occasion to model our brand-spanking-new Robson coats.  Shar's was SO new it didn't even have buttons on it yet, LOL!  But look how gorgeous it is!  It made me wish I'd also chosen a floral instead of a solid, although I do love mine too.

We got some funny looks from the concierge when we modeled our contrasting bias tape:

I'm also wearing a new, unblogged Hemlock tee that I made literally days before the trip.  I love my cream floral one so much, and always wished I had a similar black one.  So when I found the fabric at JoAnn's, I snapped it up.  And I'm so glad I did.

Shar presented me with a beautiful and generous gift of fabric:  two and a half yards of this amazing stretch sateen she'd ordered from Mood!

I keep going back and forth between making a floral blazer, or a dress.  Or another coat?  Gah!  Can't decide!  In the meanwhile, I just keep stroking it:

Monday:
Evelyn was able to take a day off and we spent the entire day together, chatting away while she showed me her city.  We started out walking the length of the High Line park - so lovely:

Had a fantastic lunch, and then worked our way back north and into Central Park.  It was a gorgeous day - we really lucked out!

Tuesday & Wednesday:
Hubby was between meetings, so we explored the city together.  I took a LOT of pictures, but I'll spare you :-)

Thursday:
A rainy day, but brightened because I spent it with Sonja!   This lady knows the Garment District, so she took me around to some of her favorite shops.  We started out at Mood.  I was completely unprepared for how huge and overwhelming this place is!  I came with some ideas of what I wanted, but couldn't find what I had in mind.  So I "settled" for this beautiful piece of silk twill, which will likely become an Archer:

After that, I had the presence of mind to ask her if any of the shops carry Liberty, so she took me off to B & J.   This was my favorite of the fabric stores I visited, and not just because they sell Liberty!  It was smaller, quieter, and less of a sensory overload because everything is nicely organized.

I was astounded at the wide selection of Liberty they had in stock.  This is just a small part of the bolts:

The fabrics are cut from these bolts, but they have a very nice system of hanging samples which make it a lot easier to look through all the different prints.

I ended up with two cuts of Tana Lawn, each enough for a shirt:

Friday:
At the party on Saturday, I met Carolyn and we chatted for a while.  We ended up connecting later in the week and decided to have a lunch date on Friday.   It was so nice to talk to her one on one, in a quieter venue!

On my way there, I stopped by B & J again - I just couldn't get a particular fabric out of my mind.  So I ended up buying this as well:

This is also Liberty; it's listed as "textured cotton print."  You can't really see the texture from the right side, but you can from the wrong side:

I really see this as a dress - an Emery if my muslin works out - so I bought 3 yards of it.

Hubby had a fair number of meetings in the evenings, so I took advantage of my alone time and knit up a pair of socks with the yarn I bought last month in Toronto!  You can't tell, because my camera can't handle it, but the colors are NEON!  Such a cool yarn.

So that was my week!  I had such a great trip, and as I said, it was made all the better by getting to hang out in real life with so many of my bloggy friends.  Isn't the internet swell?  These are all people I never would have met otherwise, but I'm so thankful they're in my life!

I've been remiss . . .

I've been spending time yesterday and today finalizing plans for some blogger meet-ups next week while I'm in NYC - and I haven't even finished posting about my trip to Toronto!  So I wanted to get a few more pix up before the memory completely fades.  Just kidding - I had such a great time with these ladies, I won't be forgetting it!

I had the good fortune to meet up with SIX bloggers from Toronto.  I'm listing them here so that in case you don't know any of them, you can meet them too via their blogs!

My lovely hostess, Andrea, of Stitch Parade.
Sara, one-half (with her sister) of Hamilton Chicklets.
Kristin, of K-Line.
Gillian, of Crafting a Rainbow.
Katja of Gjeometry.
And Tasha of Little Things.

Some of these ladies I knew from their blogs, and some from Instagram, which I've come to view as micro-blogging.  Every single one of them is just lovely, as you'd expect!  And I felt so honored that Gillian, Katja and Tasha came from quite a distance outside the city to meet me.  Thank you so much ladies!

So here are some of the fun things we did. 

On my second evening in Toronto, Andrea, Kristin, Sara and I went out for Leopard Cocktails.  What's that?  Well, the same as normal cocktails, but you wear your leopard-print clothing and/or accessories!

I mentioned before that a lot of our time was spent just knitting and hanging out, and visiting the fabric shops in the garment district.  I'm an idiot and didn't bring my camera so I don't have any pictures of that!

Saturday was a big day.  The first thing we did was to hit a currency exchange so I could get some Canadian money.  I LOVE the Canadian money - it's so beautiful, and it's made of plastic!  And holograms!

We met up with Sara at the exchange, and then she, Andrea and I went to the Distillery and walked around a bit, then stopped for a beer.  It was darn cold, so we all wore our hand-knit hats:

We had a date with the whole group for dinner, and had planned on going home first to gussy ourselves up.  But we ended up playing around in the Distillery too long, so we just had to go as we were.  No worries though - we had a fantastic time anyway!  Here's all of us except Andrea (who took the picture) at dinner:

We ended up getting kicked out of that restaurant after about an hour (! - apparently this is a thing that happens in Toronto?  We were a little outraged.)  A few of our group had to head home early anyway, but the remainder decided to find a coffee shop so we could keep talking.  And we did find a nice coffee shop nearby - which also served cocktails!  So we drank those instead.  It was super dark in there and we had a lot of fun trying to get a decent picture.   Believe it or not, this one is the best, despite our glowing eyes!

So that's it!  I have very few pictures from this trip, and the ones I do have I had to scrounge off my friends!  I'll try to do better in New York, but it's so easy to get absorbed in the moment and forget to document!

Failure and Victory

I can not believe it's been two weeks since I hopped a plane and headed to Toronto!  Never enough time in the day, eh?  (see?  I speak Canadian now!)  I had such a fantastic time there that taking so long to write about it is just a big, fat FAIL! 

Pure laziness, I assure you, and nothing to do with the trip itself.  Like Gillian (who I met - yay!!), I'm having a bit of low blogging mojo.  I'm finding that I either have time, energy and motivation to make stuff, or write about making stuff - not both.  So I'm choosing to make stuff!

Anyway, back to the trip - or actually just a part of it in this post.

Andrea is a fabulous hostess; not only did she make me feel right at home and like one of the family rather than a guest, she also organized several events for me with other bloggers.  A good portion of our time was spent hanging out on the couch, drinking coffee (or wine, depending on the hour), talking away and knitting.  Like this:

Just lovely!  Something I don't get to do often in "real" life.

The first of the outings that Andrea organized was a visit to Kristiann of Victory Patterns.  I was so excited about this - I've been a big fan of Kristiann's work from the beginning, even if my own lack of fitting knowledge has kept me from being 100% successful with the patterns.  I own ALL the patterns except for the Ava dress (which I didn't buy because I already had the very similar Colette Macaron pattern); I purchased them all immediately upon release and am slowly working my way through them.

Andrea already knew Kristiann, having taken some classes from her.  I got to meet Sara on my first evening in Toronto, after having corresponded with her for several months, and she joined us for the visit to the Victory Patterns studio. 

I really expected nothing more than to have a quick meeting and say, "I'm a big fan!"  But Kristiann was so generous with her time - I think the four of us spent a good three hours together!  Kristiann is just a lovely person - so friendly and enthusiastic.  She took us on a tour of the building where she has her studio; many other artists also rent space there, including some clothing designers and production seamstresses.  It was so interesting to talk to her about her process in designing and releasing a pattern.  I especially loved seeing the original version of the Nicola dress - the gorgeous border-print one from the pattern envelope!

I made my Nicola expressly for this meeting, and Andrea decided to whip up a Roxanne blouse to wear.  Here we are, all four of us, in a cute little coffee shop in Kensington Market:

L - R:  Sara, Andrea, Kristiann & me;  photo courtesy of Andrea

Kristiann is wearing the Madeleine skirt!  And Sara is wearing her gorgeous Kara cardigan.

One of the things Andrea and I tend to do when we're together is try on each other's makes.  We have similar taste in patterns and we're about the same size, so it's great to be able to try on a pattern you're thinking about making!  I've been wanting to make the Roxanne blouse since just about forever, and when Andrea visited me in December, I found a beautiful piece of silk on the sale rack at my local fabric shop that I  knew would be just perfect.  It was on my list for spring, but after trying on Andrea's beautiful blue silk Roxanne, I had to bump it up in the queue.

So last week I traced the pattern and did a tissue fitting, then got going.  Because my fabric is very busy, I made the tie-neck version, but I'll definitely be making another one with that amazing folded collar.

This version is so quick to make.  I realized on Friday that I didn't have any silk thread in the right color, so on Saturday morning I headed over to JoAnn's to pick some up.  I didn't start sewing until after lunch, and I was done by 4:00!

front

back

pleat detail

tie detail

My big concern with this pattern was the back and sleeve fitting.  I had Andrea measure me, and my back fell into a size 12, while my bust puts me in a size 2!  I settled on a size 4.  When I did my tissue fitting, the back and armhole felt OK as drafted, so the only changes I made were to take a 3/8" forward shoulder adjustment and to remove 1" from the length at the lengthen/shorten line.

Once the top was finished though, I wished I'd done a broad back adjustment and scooped out the armhole a bit.  It's a teeny bit tight, but not so bad that I won't wear it.  For future versions, I'll make those adjustments.

Here's how it looks on, front and back:

One of the things I love about this design is how the back swishes out when you walk.  It's a blouse with a train!  I tried to get a pic of the swishiness in action, but wasn't too successful!

And I tried to get a good shot of the high/low hem, but once again I'm pressed for time.  So this silly one will have to do!

"Hmmm, what should I sew next?"

SF Day 1: Stefanie and ArtFibers

Hubby and I arrived in San Francisco on Wednesday, May 15.  The next morning, I met up with Stefanie of Knitspiring Odyssey at a very unique yarn shop just a couple blocks from our hotel, ArtFibers.

I first "met" Stefanie about a year ago when Evelyn started her Ravelry group and organized a charity hat knitalong.  Stef was one of the earlier members to join the group, and she was also the winner of the July prize, which was a box bag that I made.  It was great to finally meet her in person:  just as you'd expect from reading her blog, she's a real sweetie, and adorable to boot!  Here's a picture of the two of us:

Stef really loves hats, and on that day she was wearing a gorgeous Sideways Grande Cloche that she'd made.  Purple is definitely her color, don't you think?  Also, I really need to get with the program and make that pattern!

Stefanie suggested ArtFibers as a meetup location because it was a shop she hadn't visited yet and was interested in checking out.  If you ever decide to go there, make sure you have the address with you:  the space is on the third floor of a small building sandwiched in on Sutter Street, so it's really easy to just walk right by the little doorway that leads to the elevator which takes you up to the shop.

But once you step off the elevator:  what a space!  The third floor loft is lined with windows, so there's lots of natural light, and all the shelving is kept at mid-chest level (for me) so that the overall effect is open and airy.

The owner of the shop, Roxanne, was really friendly and helpful, and spent a lot of time talking with us and explaining the concept.  ArtFibers sources their raw materials from all over the world, and then has unique yarns created for their shop right here in the US.  One thing that Stef and I both really enjoyed was the large posters on the walls with pictures and information about different fiber types.

Each yarn has its own little display, complete with a notecard stating the fiber content and many sample swatches in various colors and stitch patterns, so you can get a great idea of how the yarn works up.  All the yarns are on cones, and the prices listed on the notecard are per yard - you can have as many or as few yards wound off as you want!

We spent quite a bit of time going up and down the aisles, touching all the samples and looking at the colors available in the bins.  Of course, neither of us wanted to go away empty-handed - but boy, was it hard to make a choice!  I finally figured out which yarn I wanted, but then couldn't decide between three colors.  While I was thinking it over, Stefanie started flipping through a magazine and came across a picture of Veera Valimaki's Color Affection Shawl - perfect!

Roxanne got on Ravelry and looked up the pattern for me and we figured out how much I'd need of each color, and then she wound it off for me.  I ended up getting a yarn called Carezza, which is a merino/alpaca/silk blend.  Yes, it is as luscious as it sounds!

And here are the colors I chose:  a silvery off-white, a gorgeous aquamarine and a misty plum:

Roxanne very kindly offered to ship my yarn to me, which meant that not only did I not have to carry it back with me in my suitcase, but she also didn't have to charge me tax!  (Although I was surprised to learn that the sales tax is a couple percent lower in San Francisco than it is in Chicago.)  Stefanie also walked away with some yarn, but I'll let her tell everybody on her own blog what she got :-)

By this time, a couple of hours had passed and we were getting hungry, so we asked Roxanne for a lunch recommendation.  She directed us to a little French place just around the corner, Cafe Claude.  This place and a couple of others were down a side alley that you'd probably walk right by if you didn't know there was something down there!  I saw that type of thing in a few places in San Francisco - I think it's pretty cool!  Anyway, I liked it so much, we ended up taking some friends there the next evening for dinner.

After lunch, Stefanie had to run off to a meeting, and I wandered back to my hotel . . . via Britex, which I'll tell you about another day!

So that's the story of my first blogger meet-up in San Francisco - it was a great start to a lot of great adventures with amazing people!