I won!

I won a giveaway for the first time! I hardly ever enter giveaways...only if there is truly something I want so it makes sense that I have not won any before since I am not upping my chances by entering a lot. But who cares?? I won one! And it was for a great prize. I won The Art of Manipulating Fabric by Colette Wolff which shows you all kinds of cool ways to texturize and add fun details to garments that may otherwise be plain. And I won it from a lady with the coolest blog name ever (if you are a lawyer)--KC from The Sewcratic Method.

After winning, she suggested meeting up  for fabric shopping and lunch since we were both in the Los Angeles area...no way was I turning that down! We met up at the Loft and spent awhile there finding all kinds of goodies. For those of you who are not familiar, or who didn't read about my last Loft experience, the Loft is an offshoot of the famous Michael Levine's that sells an entire room full of fabric in boxes and on bolts for only $2.50 per pound! It is an amazing deal....especially if you are getting a ton of chiffon--they hardly weigh anything! But of course my aim on this trip was to get bottomweights and suiting materials because I have so many knits and chiffons...all I make are blouses! But I plan to expand on that....wait until you see my planned lineup for my sewing projects...I must be feeling ambitious because there is a LOT on there!

KC also made out with a lot of great fabrics.,..she even used some for her Promaballoona dress! Here is a picture I stole off her blog to prove this event really happened. Nhi, another sewer who I have shopped with at the Loft before met us as well and joined us on our expedition.

The three of us at Fabric Planet

Warning!!!! Anyone looking for Fabric Planet...do NOT follow the address on their website for their downtown location...it is totally not there! We walked like 250 extra blocks to go to this address, in the heat, and it was not there and had moved to 8th and Santee...which was so close to Michael Levine's (where we had been) that we did all that extra walking for no reason! Ok actually nevermind...I just checked their website and they updated it!  Good!  Because it had been since before April that their location was different...and I told them when I was there about how ridiculous it was that their address was STILL not updated on the website!  Well it looks like it worked...feel free to actually follow the address on their website and ignore my warning.

A Trip Downtown to LA's Garment District

A couple posts ago I wrote about the outfit I wore to the Sew LA Colette Patterns book signing party. What I failed to mention was that I had spoken with a fellow sewer on patternreview about meeting up there. Of course, due to our complete and utter lack of planning, we completely missed each other. :( But don't be sad! The story gets fantastic!

This fellow PR member, Nhi, ended up meeting two other lovely ladies at the party and they made plans to go to the garment district and shop up a storm. Nhi, being the thoughtful person that she is, decided to invite me along even though I had never met any of them! I was so excited and touched!

We all met up this last Saturday and shopped until we dropped. Dropped literally. I was so exhausted. We went from 9:30 am meet up at the Loft of Michael Levine and left around 4 or 4:30. And we scored big time! If you are willing to scavenge and almost turn the boxes upside down, you can find some good stuff in there. And it is only $2.50 per pound!! POUND! I will show you my haul in another post because it is currently in the washing machine.

Now of course I had never met any of these girls before but was that an issue? Not in the slightest! We spent all day laughing and talking. I had a blast. Nhi introduced me to Sandra, and fellow blogger Jill. (from whom I stole our picture below...she has made some really adorable items on her blog...go check it out!) We all were also wearing something we made. These are some talented ladies! I cannot wait to see what they make with the fabrics they got! 

From left to right: Jill, me, Sandra, and Nhi (You are seeing a sneak peak of my Renfrew shirt!)

We went all over the district and I definitely found many much wanted needed pieces of fabrics. But of course, since I am on a mission to find hot pink and black houndstooth medium weight woven fabric, for my Galaxy dress, Vogue 8280, it was nowhere to be found. Any readers have any clue or happen to have some by them? I NEED it! I want to make the dress to wear to my sister in laws wedding in May.

This day sounds pretty exciting huh? But wait! There is more! I met mimi g!  You all know mimi g right? Of sewing and blogging fame? I recognized her at the cutting counter at Michael Levine's and I think creeped her out just a little by running up to her and calling her by her name. Yes...I now realize that is creepy. Oops. But it all worked out and she was super nice. I told her what a fan I was of her blog.

Side note! She mentioned me in her blog. And even remembered my name! Is that not the sweetest thing you have ever heard? I am so touched. I was nervous of going up to her originally but the girls convinced me and now I am so glad I did. She was the nicest...and of course extremely fashionable...as I am sure you can tell by her blog. I am here to tell you that yup...she lives up to the hype. Just as gorgeous in person!