OK, I’ve been bad

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But I have good excuses for the long absence. I’ve been touring the world visiting family. Literally. London to Taiwan (via HK) to New Zealand (via HK) to Australia to Los Angeles to Columbus and back (via Los Angeles). Mea Culpa on the carbon footprint. And it isnt’ as glamorous as it sounds. I’m totally fried from all those flights. I need a holiday!

On the plus side I did check out fabric stores all over the world. The only omission is in Taipei, where I didn’t discover where the fabric district was until it was too late. But since then, I’ve made a point of seeking them out.

So here’s the low down of where I visited. And my latest acquisitions.

Taipei,  Taiwan

There’s a whole bunch of fabric shops to the northwest of Taipei Main Station around Nanjing West Road (南京西路) & Dihua Street (迪化街). I only found out because the bus to the National Palace Museum passed by these shops. And now I Googled, there seems to be a fabricholic’s paradise called Yongle Fabric Market (永樂市場)… Must. Visit. Next. Time…Drool.

Christchurch, New Zealand

Christchurch is rather too suburban for my taste. Especially as I don’t drive. It was next to impossible to find the fabric stores. So I only got to visit one: Fabric Vision‎ (39 Main North Road, Papanui, 8053).  And within 5 minutes of arriving it was closing for the day ( it was only 4pm). Looks like a typical suburban fabric store. Not huge, but enough variety when you’re desperate. Needless to say I didn’t get anything here.

But I did experience some earthquakes. A bit like bad air turbulence. Luckily it only lasted a few seconds. Any more I would have freaked out.

Sydney, Australia

Sydney feels a bit more like NYC, but more outward looking. I mean towards the harbors and sea. So maybe that’s why it doesn’t seem to have a centralised fabric district. I could only track down two fashion fabric stores: Tessuti Fabrics (110 Commonwealth St, Sydney NSW 2010) and The Fabric Store (21 Cooper Street, Surry Hills NSW 2010). Neither are huge. Both seem to organise fabrics primarily by color. What does that says about Aussies? 😉

I did have minor success here. I got these lovely asian looking nylon-spandex silky prints from The Fabric Store. They are designer fabrics, but I can’t remember who. And anyway, it wouldn’t have mattered as I won’t buy something just because it’s designer. The only disappointment is that the print is naturally just one side. So the wrong side is rather ugly. And being totally synthetic, it might get a bit sweaty to wear. Imagine if it were pure silk….

And at $30/yd, it’s up there with my typical NYC purchase. Ouch.

Los Angeles, California, USA

Even before I left London I was excited to stop by Los Angeles. For I had Googled and found a LA Fashion District site indicating there’s a Fabric District. Plus from Project Runway Season 6 I knew there was a branch of Mood Fabrics in LA.

The problem is LA is another very spread out town. And by now I’ve lost my chauffeur – aka le Boyfriend. I end up spending most of my time on buses, because frustratingly Mood isn’t in the Fabric District.

But boy was I glad to have stopped by Mood. For when I got to the Fabric District, I was rather disappointed to find mainly small cheap shops, many selling pretty much the same not so high quality stuff.

(Sorry, picture from Google Map. Too tired to take any of my own.)

But hey, if you want $1/yd fabrics to experiment with, this is the place for you! Never have I found fabric so cheap. (OK, maybe Taipei or some 3rd world markets if I had visited.)

If my suitcase had been bigger and US Airways not charging the earth for baggage, I might have picked up some of these dirt cheap fabric anyway. For fitting muslims they might just fit the bill. But as I was on a trip taking me from the height of summer (28°C) to the depth of freezing winter (-6°C), there was no room for mindless purchases.

Here are what I managed to pick up in LA:

Faux fur
Flesh color jersey
Flocked denim

All from Mood. Roughly dressed up how I envision I’ll use them.

Faux croc leather in red & brown (from LA fabric district)
Grey denim with a touch of stretch (from Mood)

I think the faux leather might have been from Deco Design Fabrics, 512 East 9th Street in Downtown Los Angeles. I got them primarily to make handbags, after being inspired by Bags You Can Make blog.

The denim is to replace my beloved Miss Selfridge peddle pusher jeans that I worn to death. But I might try to squeeze a tailored jacket out of it too.

All together these cost me like $125 for 8 yards. That’s like a tenth of what I spent on my last trip to NYC! (Give me luxury fabrics over designer anything any day! :-D)

Oh, and one mustn’t forget the lovely Fashion Bookstore inside the California Market Center building on 110 E 9th St. It’s got an amazing range of fashion & apparel books & magazines, including plenty of sewing, fitting, pattern drafting ones. I wished I had more time to browse.

Columbus, Ohio, USA

And Columbus has…Jo-Ann’s. And more Jo-Ann’s! I’m sure I’d find something to buy if my stash wasn’t overflowing. But there’s nothing special here that would have parted me with my money despite myself.

On the other hand, I love browsing these warehouse size craft shops. If I have one nearby I’d no doubt squander lots of loose changes in it!

And the conclusion?

There is still no place like home. That’s NYC, not London (despite me being here like forever now). The wallet might be happier else where, but there’s still nowhere that beats NYC garment district for sheer concentrated fabric lushness.

Care to contradict me? Where do you love to shop for fabrics and why?

UFO Revisit 3: Faux Shearling Stole part 2

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Now where was I? Oh yes, getting crafty with the faux fur stole.

Years ago, I was seduced by this Jean Paul Gaultier loveliness:

Again I plotted to make myself one. Again I failed to find the perfect fabric. Now I’m in the neighborhood, though nowhere rich enough to afford yardages for a full coat, I can at least console myself with a pastiche of this (look above), and this (look below)…


My Chinese Painting skills not being what it should be, I had to settle for the ubiquitous dandelion design so beloved of interior designers (and me too)…

So I experimented with some decade old graphic design markers on a scrap. Added a bit of gold paint I bought for the Bird & Blossom Taffeta Pleated Skirt. I even digged out the chinese seal my parents gave me in time long gone. It may look like just doodles to you, but it’s a door to one of my alternate universes.

So here’s the Double A-Side of the Faux Shearling Stole:

Please note the stray faux crack lines à le manteau Gaultier. The dandelions are simple asterisk type shapes, with small crosses & dots at the edge of the pompoms for that distinctly dandelion look. Ok, the leaves aren’t dandelion leaves – more like spider-plants they are. But like with my crooked pseudo Chinese “calligraphy” who’s going to tell? (That’s pseudo calligraphy, not pseudo Chinese. I may not remember how to write Chinese, but I remember how to look it up on Google.)

(PS The words are from a famous Tang Dynasty Chinese poem I learnt as a child. It seemed vaguely appropriate as it’s about spring and falling flowers. You can find out more about the poem here or listen to it read in Chinese here. I almost went for a children’s spoof version about not bathing in the summer and getting mosquitoes bites everywhere, slaps in the night and wondering how many dead. Maybe I should have. Who would have known in London?)

And there’s the back-side for those walking behind me…

It was good fun. But I haven’t figured out how to style this side yet. This is my best attempt so far:

Hmm…Needs a bit more work.

I might add some thread loops at the side waist so I can tie it at the back for a less bulky look.

Or I might add some thread loops at the bottom edges so I can attached detachable faux rabbit feet à la So En stole I showed you earlier.

Oh yes, every sewing project is a big production. I hope the end results will be worth it!

UFO Revisit 3: Faux Shearling Stole

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OK, last UFO Revisit for the year. What with Xmas coming up I don’t think there’s any chance of finishing anything else. So here you go.

Not my favorite styling, but at least it illustrate the wearing options courtesy of multiple hooks in different places!

The inspiration…

…Was this fabulously faux Comme des Garçons Garcons design from Autumn/Winter 1989-90…And I’m fabulously late of course!

Actually, I had been planning on making one since the beginning. But finding the right faux fur wasn’t easy. Obviously what I ended up using isn’t the same type of  faux fur, but it’s fabulously luxurious darling!

And in the intervening years, I’ve also picked up this lovely Michael Kors take on the fur stole. (In 2D form of course, I have no filthy rich but widely hated nowaday sugar daddy to fund my wardrobe.)

I love Love LOVE the juxtaposition with manly tweed. I’m still plotting to make that coat in the right one day.

And as usual I didn’t document which year this clipping is from. Can you ID the collection?

Of course lately there have been other retro faux fur stole in fashion. Like this clipping for UK Glamour, again date unknown, but I know it’s definitely recent.

So, when I finally found the Luxe Plus faux shearling at B&J in NYC last Feb, I thought the time is nigh for a faux fur stole.

Looking for the perfect pattern

First the search for the right pattern. I have no idea what shape it would be. It seems like just a straight cut of fabric. But then would it mold well to the shoulder? And if curved, how curved and where curved?

I initially cut the fabric to this Japanese pattern clipping I have. It’s from a feature on faux fur garments in So-En from ages ago. (Sadly So-En is no longer a pattern magazine, but just a fashion forward fashion magazine. And I’ve been a bit sacrilegious, having clipped out only those patterns I liked at the time. And you know how some  tastes changes over time… 🙁

I like the oversized edgy look – I didn’t want to go too dainty. But when I tried it on and it looked unruly. I think my double cloth shearling is a bit too stiff for this much fabric. I had to move on to Plan B.

I briefly toyed with idea of Burda Style 2011-12-117. But I ruled it out because the shaping seam running length-wise in the middle of the stole won’t work on my double-faced faux shearling. There’s no lining to cover up the seam and I think it’d look weird having the seam exposed in a stole.

So the final Plan B is an adaptation of another design from the same So-En article…

This is  a little bit more dainty than what I wanted. So I ditched the CF gathering; enlarged it to make full use of the fabric piece I already cut out; and curved the edges. In retrospect maybe I should have curved it more for a better fit around the shoulder. But it’s good enough to wear.

The furry sewing experiment

It got a bit furry when it came to the sewing. My RTW faux shearling coat has straight stiching along the cut edges with no seam allowances. But when I tried the same on a scrap, it didn’t look right nor feel right.

The edge felt a bit rough, which is a problem for a garment close to the skin. The top edge was also shedding fur and showing the cut edge.

I tried blanket stitching the edges. Still no good. So in the end I went for one of the techniques recommended for double-faced fabrics…

  • I peeled the edges of the double-cloth,
  • straight and zig-zag stitched the edges to reinforce them,
  • freed some trapped furs, but then promptly sheared off the one in the seam allowance to minimize bulk,
  • turned the seam allowance of the fur side in and hand-stitched in place,
  • finally turned the seam allowance of the suede side in and slip stitch the two layers at the edges.

Closure choices

I checked out other stoles and decided against the decidedly dainty ribbon closure. It wouldn’t work on my slightly oversized stole anyway. Fur hooks on the fur side doesn’t quite work either as my fur pile isn’t long enough to hide them. And with the double-faced cloth, there no way to sew the hooks to the wrong side with only the hook and loop bits poking through to the right side. So I ended up sewing 2 sets to the edges of the suede side, then throw in a bar tack loop for good measure.

Now you see it now you don’t!

A few strands of thread loops coved with blanket stitches blends into the furry background quite easily. In fact, sometimes I had trouble finding it when I want to. I also tried thread loops made with chain stitches, but it didn’t blend so well and seems a bit too fragile.

Getting crafty with it

And you thought that’s the end of it? Oh no, not so fast! There are still these inspirations to tackle…

On second thought, maybe that’s enough image porn  for one post. Stayed tuned for crafty part 2.

UFO Revisit 2: Faux Shearling Pillbox

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Next up, my Russian hat. Heartless that I am, I’m replacing this long-lost John Lewis faux fur hat with a younger model:

Many a happy moments I had in that warm cozy hat, for it is very handy in damp cold Blighty. And I felt a billion Russian roubles in it! I was heartbroken when I lost it for the second time. (I eventually found it after the first parting. But no such luck second time around.)

I resolved to replace it. And as it’s a simple pillbox, it seems easy enough to make one myself. I had found this faux shearling in the same shade of brown at B&J in NYC. I had the simple oval and rectangle patterns drafted. I went as far as cutting out both pattern pieces. Then I stalled.

Why? Because I was terrified of the fabric.

I’ve never sewn furry fabric before. And while I’ve sewn faux suede before, the faux shearling looked too real and I got it into my head that this one will be unforgiving like real leather and suede. One sewing slip and your project is ruined. So it languished on the UFsO pile.

Circumstances (sloper fiasco & freezing wind) finally forced me to take baby steps with this ridiculously simple project. So here we are.

OK, so it’s more of a Fez than a Pillbox. That’s because I forgot to add ease for the thick hem. Always the ease! Bane of my sewing! But I think it’s still perfectly serviceable. In fact I’ve already worn it a few times out now.

Now of course I wasn’t going to be content with just a faux fur pillbox. It would be an abominable waste of an expensive faux shearling fabric! Actually, I lied, I was going to settle. So in awe of the task of sewing such fabric I thought I better not push my luck. But as luck would have it when I tried it on inside out while deciding what to do with the seam allowances, I fell in love with the shearling side too.

Don’t I look like a pixie in this one? Just needed some pointy ears!

Feathers courtesy of a friend. They must have had a pheasants & friends feast. I got a whole bag of loose assorted feathers. As for feather styling idea, well, time for some Ralph Lauren visual feast from my clipping piles again:

Love this jacket too, though I’m not sure I can carry it off with my non-Glamourzon frame.

Now that’s what I call feathers! Make mine look so puny. Now I got a serious case of Feather Envy.

And for a more everyday wear with my every(Winter)day faux shearling coat (good old John Lewis again)…Oh yes I would. Feathers don’t scare me.

2  down, 4 more to go!

Stay tuned.

‘Tis the season for sharing after all

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I wish video internet was as viral when I made Big Bertha as it is today. Today I got a spamail from Threads magazine advertising their latest Dress Form Making tutorial. Boy, was I glad I didn’t junk it straight away. It turned out to be a great video tutorial on making a Duct Tape dress form. Quite a few good tips it has. And clear video demonstration obviously doesn’t hurt either. Enjoy!

Make Your Own Dress Form: Part 1