Seattle Trip 2011...Fabric and Friends...

Great trip to Seattle for a few weeks, and this is my haul from Pacific Fabrics Outlet. A lovely PR member was so nice as to escort my daughter and I shopping for a whole afternoon of Pacific Fabrics, the Asian market Uwajimaya, including
the Japanese bookstore Kinokuniya and lunch. Diana is a fantastic person, and we had such a nice time. As far as fabrics, none caught my eye on this trip, although my DD purchased a couple lengths for dresses. I look forward to seeing the results! Diana tells us that the fabric selection does vary from trip to trip because it is a real outlet. In addition to fabrics and patterns, they also have all sorts of notions, threads (Metrosene too!), and a large section of upholstery fabrics, knitting supplies and yarns, and a lot more interesting things. My patterns all came from a 50cent bargain table, and the selection there included many crafty patterns as well. Lots of cross stitch. Now, don't get me started on Kinokuniya Bookstore. My only regret is not having the ability to read Japanese because I bought two sewing pattern magazines, and gave one to my daughter, and I kept Mrs. Stylebook for myself. After finding the directions for enlarging patterns in the magazine, I was faced with a mathematical quandary out of all proportions, and unless someone comes up with an easy fix I will never make these fit. However, the magazine comes with ten patterns bound in of real size, so that is a project for later this year. The issue I bought is a Winter issue 2010. Lots of lovely things in it! The other book in the photo was purchased at Half-Price Books, another Seattle landmark I love. It's a chain, and there are more than one in the Seattle area. Did I mention Seattle is rampant with bookstores? Several Barnes & Nobles, Borders, Half-Price Books and books at thrift stores, second hand stores, and my personal favorite, Third Place Books in which you find used and new books inter-shelved which I just love! I look forward to the next trip and another day with Diana! It's great to meet PR members in other places, and so far all I have met are such nice people! Since I spent several weeks in the Seattle area, family time was good as well! Seeing grandkids is always a great joy, and I visiting my son and his Julie is always a lot of fun and a good family time. A few days after our visit to downtown Seattle, we prevailed upon my DDIL to take us to the Uwajimaya store in Bellevue as well, so we went and had another nice shop. Of course there is no Kinokuniya store there, although there are many colorful packages of goodies, lots of teas, Asian cookware, dishes, kitchen supplies (more rice cookers than I have ever seen, and I LOVE rice cookers), and Julie's name on a whole line of cookie of goodies! The fresh seafood was impressive! the cleanest tanks I have ever seen. Even one beautiful tank full of fish that looked more like a lovely permanent fish tank than a fish-for-sale-to-eat tank should! As far as sewing, I was able to make two pair of cute jammies from the KWIK SEW Sewing for Children book, but the largest size is now going to be too small in about 6 months! Anyway the two pair fit well, with some room to spare for the boys, and they are happy as clams in their jammies! The KWIK SEW patterns are so nice - they don't have all the extra voluminous room that the bog 4 put in their kids wear. The fabric is from Hancock's and is a Seattle print with the Space Needle, coffee, trees and water, a large Ferry and so on, very Seattle and environs. It seems to be gone from the website at Hancock's now! Glad I got it when I did. It handled and ironed very well, the weight is a little heavier than a routine quilting cotton, and it sewed up marvelously. I did the sew-turn-sew thing for the elastic waists because there is no need to allow for growth because the boys will be bigger all over by the time that is a factor! Layout is always better with a KWIK SEW pattern as well. Love them.