Shopping List? What Shopping List? Are We Supposed To Stick To The Shopping List?

How I pass a day in the City:

Tuesday, 19 June 2012

10 to 11 am

F's fab shoes

Sit in Think Coffee, Meatpacking/Chelsea district, drinking Earl Grey tea and eating smoked salmon cream cheese bagels with your daughter, F.  Discuss all the items you both need to purchase to finalise your outfits for JA & JT's (my 2 sons) university graduation ceremonies in England in July.  The shopping list includes:

• black suede summer weight shoes for F;
• clutch bag for F;
• cream strappy top for F;
• long sleeve 'floaty' cream blouse for F;
• nude summer weight handbag for C; and
• 2 cardi's for C to match each of  my 2 graduation dresses purchased last week.

Get a text from husband, S, telling me that No 2 son, JT, has been awarded first class honours for his MDrama degree in Drama and Theatre Studies at The University of Kent in Canterbury, England.  JT, we're so thrilled for you, you've worked hard and played hard and you deserve your success xxx.

11 to 12 noon

F tries on shoes in Shoegasm and picks up an incredible pair of Chelsea Crew shoes - they're exactly what she's looking for.

12 noon to 1 pm

Watch F try on pretty much everything that's currently available to purchase at Urban Outfitters - F comes away with a dress, tie-dye purple shorts and 2 pairs of strappy sandals (yes, you're right, none of these were on the list but we both know she looks great in them and they're such a bargain!).

1 to 1.30 pm

Nip into The Container Store and pick up a necklace holder for, yes you've guessed it, F!  Leave F at subway loaded down with bags though none of it's for me - some use that shopping list proved to be!

1.30 - 3 pm

Meet up with my friend, W, at our Manhattan LQS to put together a collection of black and white fabrics with a splash of red for a table runner she's going to make.

Spot a laminate that I just have to have a yard of Kaffe Fassett Studio- Petunias Blue.  Thinking toiletry bags lined with the Early Birds by Jane Sassaman 'Poka Dot' that I've used with my Sparkle Plenty quilt and lime green zippers.  But I've also got a hankering for a picnic blanket using this laminate as the ground sheet, how stunning would that be?  Mmm, I'll have a think on that one.

Kaffe Fassett - Petunias Blue

Jane Sassaman - Poka Dot

3 to 4 pm 

Hot Lemon Ginger tea and none stop chin wagging at The Blue Dog, then jump in a taxi with W and you'll never guess where we're off to ... (some readers may recall a place in NYC that I've not been to yet but am very keen to visit) ...

4 to 5 pm

... finally, my long promised and awaited trip to Purl Soho and I'm not disappointed.  It's a really cute shop in a fab area with lots of other great shopping and eating.  Right opposite is Kiteya, Soho, a Japanese accessory and fabric shop so we pop in here first and I pick up a small canvas shoulder bag and a notepad - will be calling back again when I need to stock up on gifts and pressies.  Satisfied with our purchases at Kiteya, W and I cross over to Purl where we are greeted with a great selection of yarns and fabrics.

So PurlSoho, not as many fabrics to choose from as at my LQS, some fabrics are the same but enough are different and are current popular ranges so it makes it worthwhile to shop at both locations, which is good.  A bit pricier than my LQS also - a fat quarter is $3.50 compared to $3.00 but not too badly priced (nothing in NYC seems badly priced to me compared to English prices where retailers seem to think they can just change the $ to a £ instantly making all English prices 1/3 more expensive than the American price).

So here's what I bought:

I've got a bit of a thing for purple and green!

Loving the Avalon Birdie Spokes (Concrete) - it grounds all the other colours and stops them being too sickly together

Not my usual colour palette but thinking I should work outside my comfort zone sometimes just to see how it feels

5 to 6 pm

As we're walking back over to the West Side to get on the subway let's just recap that shopping list for today:

• black suede summer weight shoes for F;
• clutch bag for F;
• cream strappy top for F;
• long sleeve 'floaty' cream blouse for F;
• nude summer weight handbag for C; and
• 2 cardi's for C to match each of 2 graduation dresses purchased last week

Looks like we'll have to go back again another day - now isn't that a shame?!!!

For details of other NYC fabric, yarn, trim and notion stores that I love along with other stores around the world, exhibitions, and events I've attended, click the links below or in my sidebar

Disclaimer: This post is for informational purposes only, no payment or commission is received on click-throughs and opinions are my own.

And The Winner Is ... Oh My, It's Me!!!!!

My battered Bernina Day flyer

In my last post I did mention to you all that yesterday I'd be popping along to the Bernina Day at The City Quilter and then making my first ever visit to Purl Soho. Well I headed along to CQ and had so much fun there that I never left so my visit to Purl Soho has, yet again, been postponed!

Well, if you headed over to CQ yourself yesterday, you'll know exactly why I didn't move any further than having a bite of lunch with my friend, A, at my favourite Manhattan cafe, The Blue Dog on 25th, there was just too much going on and it would have been a shame to miss any of it. Every half hour a raffle prize was drawn - I didn't win one myself but A won a pack of 3 quilt patterns and my other friend, M, won a charm pack. Then every hour there was a Bernina foot demonstration by Gayle Schliemann, Bernina's Regional Manager, and a raffle drawn amongst those who attended the session for the Bernina foot that was just demo'd. Again, I didn't win a foot but A also won a cording foot - wasn't it her lucky day?!

Photo taken by CQ in the Bernina Demo Room

I did buy lots of goodies though:

My collection of goodies

• Add a Quarter ruler as recommended to me by Kati in her comment on my New York Beauty post;
• lime green thread to free motion quilt part of my Sparkle Plenty quilt;
• Clover fork pins - going to give these a go to see what they're like for holding down multiple seam joins;
• Batiks - yes I was so taken with my June Bee Block I want to have another go at making New York Beauty blocks for myself;
• walking foot sole with central guide - I already have the walking foot that came with my Bernina 440QE but my model is before they made included this central guide sole and it's going to be fab for quilting in the ditch;
• and a straight stitch needle plate - I'm reliably informed that this will change my sewing and stop my fabric ever getting dragged down under the sewing plate.

Here's CQ's facebook photo album from the day.

But the best bit of the day - and what I've been holding back from telling you about, is that I did win something -  

I took 1st prize in the Creative Challenge!!!!!

The brief was:

Anyone can submit any finished product they've created on a Bernina to be judged for a first, second and third prize of City Quilter gift certificates.  We'll be looking for the best examples of these machines' exceptional capabilities.

I entered 2 book covers that I've made using a variety of techniques, hand and machine sewing and I won - I'm very, very thrilled.  A big thank you has to go to my friend, I, who mentioned the competition to me last week and without whom I would never have thought to enter - thank you!  By the way, she has her own fab knitting blog that you might want to check out - Chiagu and she's also launching an internet version of Ravelry for us quilters called Quiltfolio which I think will be amazing.

So here's a photo of my prize and also some of my book covers.

 

For details of other fabric, yarn, trim and notion stores that I've visited around the world along with the NYC stores I love, exhibitions and events I've attended and wonderful people I've been lucky to meet click the links below or in my side bar :D

Disclaimer: This post is for informational purposes only, no payment or commission is received on click-throughs and opinions are my own.