Shopping In The Garment District

AKA letting Mama Spark play unattended amongst the fabric shops!!  BUWAHAHAHAHA!!  It was an amazingly fun time I had today.  I went to visit shops along 37th-39th between 7th and 8th avenue.  I wasn't sure where to go first so I just went into every shop!! Some of them had spandex or more trims than things I could use but I snooped into them anyway!

Victoria (Bumble Beans) had taken me to some amazing places last time I was here and one of them was B & J Fabrics.  Now they are a little bit pricey for most "regular" fabrics but they have a lot of cool stuff.

Just look at all this Liberty!

Minimum cut was half a yard. I did buy half a yard of one of the Liberty prints as well as a yard of HR Princess and the pea and 2 half yard cuts of 2 companion prints. Ouch! That hurt the wallet!!

Off I went and wandered into this shop

Where I found the BEST deal of the entire trip (so far)!! My LAQ, Liz likes Permacore thread. I stumbled acorss a small corner in the back of this shop that had quite a bit, so I asked "How much?" For a 6000 yard cone, $4!!! Can you believe it? I called Liz and proceeded to pick up quite a bit and here's the BEST part, when I checked out the woman gave it to me for $3 a spool!!! YESSS score!! Unfortunately in my desire to help a friend out, I realized that I would be lugging 12 spools of thread all over NYC with me, UGH, the things you do for your friends, HAHA!! I may have to go back there tonight with DH to get some for my other friend Pauline, but this time I will have someone else to help carry it!!

I left here and walked down the street and saw this in their window

I was like "huh?" look at those turtles swimming in pearls!!! (Sorry the photo was taken through glass as the shop wasn't open yet.)

You never know what you are going to find in NYC!!! I was kind of on a mission to find some Dupioni silk to make myself a dress with too. I bet you will never guess the color I was looking for! Yep aqua. I found it here

54" at $12/yard!! SCORE!!! If you bought 45" it was $10/yd. I did find some additional silk in a pale green/blue cross woven with cream in a different shop and I am kicking myself that I didn't just buy it. I do remember that there was a butterfly on the door of the shop, so maybe we can go there or I can go there on Monday. If not it will be on the list for next year!

As I continued to walk I came across a leather shop. I know, I hear you saying "Leather??" but I went in thinking that maybe they had some scraps that would be cheap to make my own leather thimbles. They sure did! So I bought a few scraps and went on my way to this shop. Gray Line Linen Inc 

The kind I bought is the Barry line, just beautiful! They do sell online too.

Beautiful linen as far as the eyes could see!! I bought a couple of yards of the silver (it looked like it has a little greenish cast). I thought it might be fun to use for a quilt background. They had some awesome colors of solids that were just gorgeous and the hand? To die for!!

So I was about shopped out and that's all I could carry by myself so I hit the subway, bound for 66th and Lincoln Center for the American Folk Art Museum.

I think that's enough for today. The museum had moved and was only 1 floor (down from 3 or 4 and not in the same location so thank goodness I had done my homework and went to the right location! It was having a Stars, quilt exhibit. Since that post will also be photo heavy I will share that with you tomorrow. I hope you are having fun traveling to NYC with me!! I am having fun sharing my trip with you!! ~XOP~