fashion/garment district photos

Well we're still biting finger nails over Marius' job interview. We were told we would hear today but didn't and so we figure they are still having a hard time reaching Joel.
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However, Jo and I had a great time exploring the fashion district in LA this weekend. So much so that she is now arranging a return with several of her friends from work for early December.

What's so great about this area? Well, we didn't go to any of the clothing or accessory shops in the area. We limited ourselves to the fabric intersection of Maple and 9th. We hit the "mall" first and fell in love with many fabrics. Although we didn't find much at the famous Em-Be's Fabrics , we did right across the hall at Niki's where they even did a burn test for us before we bought.

However, before we could commit to buying any fabric we felt we needed to see as much as possible. As a result our first purchases were beads and findings. Very inexpensive beads and findings at that. The string of agate below was only $20!!!

and a close up of a couple of them...

I also found leather lace super cheap. Each spool below is 100 m and I only paid $14 for each of them. I'll knit them up into a bag like one I did a few years ago with cotton suede tape that may not last much longer. It was space dyed so I used linen stitch. Stay tuned for swatches for the new bag.

When we had finally exhausted the nearby fabric shops (and nearly all of our energy), we returned to Niki's to buy fabric. Jo bought five different fabrics for a fire bird (bird not the car) quilt she's working on and I got this butterfly brocade. Some day it will be a jacket.

While, it wasn't expensive in the grand scheme of things, it was for the garment district. I'm sorry I'm switching names here but when I was double checking store names I realized some people refer to the rodeo drive area as the fashion district. We certainly didn't go on a shopping spree there!

In an attempt to fend off urges to buy it I gave into an evil, evil, man who kept lowering his price on this other fabric until I ended up paying only $2.50/yd. It isn't silk or even part silk like the butterfly fabric but at $2.50/yd. who cares? Not me certainly!

Of course buying it didn't serve it's intended purpose as I clearly went ahead and bought the butterfly fabric as well. Oh well.

Here we are once we finally made it back to Montclair. Notice the ever-present shiny forehead I'm sporting. This time I felt like the activities of the day could actually explain it if nothing else. It was fun and we were exhausted!