The Expo Haul '08

There's the contents of the bags all spilled and spread. The total yards bought (somehow, I forgot to put the stuff I got at JoAnn's in the photo...but it was only one Burda costume pattern and one yard of silk/lycra black charmeuse) on Saturday all added up to 22.875 yards. Not as bad as my day at Sir's last year, but bad enough. That makes me currently 36.125 yards away from parity, although I have two projects that are close to being finished and one that's about half done. Still, I'm climbing back on the 'no fabric' moratorium for a little while. Sigh.

But it's all good stuff! Well, the possible exceptions were two fabrics that I got purely for choir wear...that turquoise is a pretty cheap knit (I've gotten similar stuff at the dollar table at Wally World, I do believe) but it's the right color for Easter Sunday. It's going to probably be a Basewear 2 turtle neck top; we'll see how it feels after it's washed. It was in Vogue Fabric's remnants bin, so I really don't know what the content is. Definitely lycra; dunno what the balance is. It's soft and appears to be rather pill-prone...probably a cotton/poly blend. The other meh-for-me fabric is the light green cotton/lycra sateen. Beautiful hand, icky color. But it's choir green...so I figured I'd use it to test a pattern that I ordered from Cynthia Guffey, a jeans jacket w/a cool assymetrical style (I should have it in a week or two). I think if it works it'll be the pattern I use for the cool denim eyelet I've been trying to decide on a pattern for. Just enough of a twist on the classic style to suit the cool fabric.

The other fabrics I love, love, love, though. The green (also a choir green!) jacquard is a Tencel/rayon blend and drapes beautifully; I've got a couple of the Threads/Simplicity tunic tops and one of them will get made up into this pretty quick. You'll see three pieces of solid black...and that's not counting the black silk lycra charmeuse! I found some NICE black pieces...a sandwashed silk crepe from Vogue Fabrics that I intended for drapey pants, even though it's a trifle on the light side for pants. But then I visited Louise Cuttings booth and got a yard and a half of the most amazing black silk (oh, my, it's TDF!)pants weight fineline twill. Then, I found a teeny booth on aisle 1 called 'Trendy Fabrics' manned by a young couple who do most of their business on the 'net and ebay. Enough 62" tropical weight black wool for a pair of Oxfords. For less than $15.

Two black and white prints are in the haul; one is a silk crepe houndstooth from Vogue Fabrics...it'll be a killer blouse if I don't go totally crosseyed trying to sew it! The other is the crinkle fabric featured on the front of Silhouette pattern's Tank Top/Pleated Top. Peggy had a 'show special'...the pattern and the fabric for the pleated top at a discount. Hey, it goes great with all the black stuff...I decided to go for it. And she measured the fabric VERY GENEROUSLY, so I might end up with something else from it, too.

The final expo purchase was the white shirting. No one had any 100% cotton or cotton/lycra great white shirt fabric, so I ended up getting some fantabulous Italian linen from Vogue Fabrics. Not *exactly* what I was looking for, but close enough.

It wasn't everything on the list, but I managed to find subs for most of the stuff that I couldn't find specifically. And I exercised great restraint over a pricey bit of novelty wool at Vogue. The saving grace was that it was more dress-weight than jacket weight. If it'd been a tad heavier, I think I'd've been a gonner....

I purposely did not resize the photo, so if you want to see what patterns I picked up you can click on the photo and enlarge it and I think you can see details.

I had some volunteer work on my schedule this morning, and I have company coming for dinner tonight and, well, let's just say there wasn't much housecleaning done while I was gone...maybe I can sew tomorrow. Hope, hope, hope....