Summer NYC: M & J Trimmings

So this is the last of the haul from our trip to New York City: all from M & J Trimmings. I first heard of this awesome shop from a cute little book called The Curious Shopper's Guide to New York City that I bought for my mom before one of our visits. The book is full of lovely little tidbits and I'm hoping to steal it from my mom next time I'm home but the store itself is full of so many more lovely tidbits that I was a bit overwhelmed.

As you can see, the wild child loved it too. She loves helping me sew so she actually wasn't even that wild in there. She was super good and chose well.

I picked up some beautiful grosgrain ribbon for the dress (still can't decide but I think that one at the top is getting 86'ed) and that cool raspberry trim because I couldn't resist it. The salespeople were super nice and very helpful. They were also great with the kid being in the store. It was getting late and we were all hungry so I didn't get to check out the entire room of buttons but that was probably a good thing.

NYC Summer: Garment District

I finally got the perfect fabric (I hope!) for my vintage shirtwaist dress pattern. I thought I had written a post about buying the pattern but I guess I only put the photo up on the Project: Project Facebook page. I even neglected flickr, apparently.

I've been wanting to make a shirtwaist dress for a long time. I love how they are dressy but casual all at the same time and you can just do so much with them. I spent hours on Etsy finding the perfect pattern and was thrilled with it when it arrived.

I knew I would go to Beckenstein Men's fabrics in the Garment District. I stumbled upon the store a few years ago when searching for the perfect seamonster fabric for the yeti loves seamonster dolls that never surfaced (ha ha, elusive beasts). I knew I would find the most amazing men's shirt fabric in the perfect color. I mapped out the spot (along with the other places we checked out) and made it the first stop in the plan. And it was closed. (Homer slap to forehead, doh!). I read the hours but I didn't pay attention to Saturday. So anyway, lesson learned (I should change the name of this blog).

But at a shop close by, I was greeted by incredibly helpful salesmen (yes, they were all men) who put up with wild child (brought in by Mr. Lemon from Starbucks because I needed help deciding what color worked best on me in the tragically flourescent lighting). The shop had a great selection and the quality and color I was looking for. I'm really happy with it. The grosgrain ribbon from last post will be used as the belt. I'll post some pics of the colors together after I decide which way to go. I am not sure you can really get the fabric from this photo. It's kinda coral and kinda pink and surprisingly like the dress on the pattern cover which was not my intention at all. I had wanted to go blue but threw that out at the last minute. The warp and the weft are two different colors which adds some dimension and enhances the texture.It's very good quality and probably cost less than I would have spent elsewhere. I have to say I will check this store out again. Happy accident.

NYC Summer: Tinsel Trading

During my lunch hour at work, I read blogs and follow links and just get lost in it all sometimes. Back in April I read this post over at the Colette blog about Tinsel Trading and I just had to go there. Unfortunately, I don't have any good photos of the shop but Mr. Lemon kept the wild child occupied while I shopped around. She had a blast looking at all the bins full of bits. We bought her a sparkly letter Z for the alphabet in her room. I could have spent a million dollars.

Luckily, I didn't. But I did pick up some gorgeous ribbon. The striped grosgrain is to go with what I'll show you tomorrow. The yellow velvet on the far left is to spruce up some binders in my office. The wide brown velvet was just too gorgeous to pass up, the yellow striped velvety ribbon was really cheap, and who can see super wide orange ric rack and not buy it? Panda is in the shot because my little helper thought it was important. But can you see my yellow theme? How weird, huh? I've never really been into that color much before but I picked up a good bit of it on the trip.

Overall, I just loved this shop and will try to pop in every time I'm in Manhattan.