Adelaide Lemonade

Fabric Store Review - Nancy's Sewing Center

I may have mentioned once or twice that I spent last weekend with three very good college friends.  We try to get together once or twice a year somewhere that's about equi-distant for all of us.  Nothing fancy - just away from home and work and kids.  This year we met in Belfast, Maine.  Even though I grew about about 20 minutes away from there, I'd never spent much time there. 

One of my friends is a fellow knitter, so we always try to hit up a yarn shop when we're together.  It somehow works out that there's a yarn shop wherever we go.  This time we visited Heavenly Socks Yarn Shop in downtown Belfast.  They had a nice selection.  I bought some lace weight Manos del Uruguay.  My friend didn't buy anything - the stinker.  (But I did drag her into Alewive's and I think may have gotten her hooked on quilting.)

It was a bit of torture waiting for our yarn fix, but we had decided to have lunch first.  We ate at Darby's, also in town.  The food was good, and the atmosphere was nice.

And we just happened to notice that it looks like there's a really cool fabric shop going in next door.  The window display had lots of my favorite sewing books and was strewn with bunting made of gorgeous fabrics.  I think there was also lots of orange.  I stupidly didn't take a picture.  The sign said, "Fiddlehead Artisan Supply" which is funny because shortly before our weekend away, I had noticed that Oliver + S is going to be doing a trunk show there.   So I'm definitely going to have to go back and check it out.

Anyway, before all this, on our way into town, we noticed a sign for a fabric store, so we (well my friend who was driving) made the spontaneous decision to go the opposite way to check out Nancy's Sewing Center.

It was one of those kinds of places that you're certain must only exist in your home state.  To me, it was certainly a slice of Maine life.  As we walked in, we first encountered what appeared to be a yard sale in the entryway.  As we shopped, we were entertained by the friendly, if eccentric shop owner who I assumed to be Nancy.  Turns out, the shop is for sale complete with assumed-to-be-Nancy's managerial services.

In spite of being up for sale, Nancy's had quite a large selection of fabric.  It was all good-quality quilting fabric, but it was a bit too traditional for my taste.  One of my friends found some nice fabric for a bag, and I did find some lavender fabric with dots for a shirt or something for Addie.  (I mean how can you walk out of a fabric store without buying anything?)  

 

Mini Shop Hop

Yesterday I had a vacation day, and even though I had originally planned to stay home and sew all day, I couldn't resist the urge to take a little road trip to Alewives, my favorite fabric store.  I had Addie in tow, since she's going to day care a different day this week.  Ever since I had a Sprinkles cupcake in Arizona, I've kind of been on a cupcake quest, so we had to start the day with a cupcake from Two Fat Cats Bakery.  (Awesome frosting.  Cake part not bad but not quite as moist or flavorful as the Sprinkles Vanilla one I had.  Someone brought an apple pie from Two Fat Cats to a party we had, and it was the best apple pie I ever had.)

From there we headed straight to Alewives which is about an hour from where I live.  We stopped at the Irving in Wiscasset to use the bathroom.  That's the last place you'd expect to be nostalgic about, but it was oddly sentimental, since when I was growing up, it was always our first stop heading south from my hometown.  We'd almost always be able to get a treat which for my dad was always a diet coke and a Little Debbie Oatmeal pie.  I can't remember what the rest of us had.

Driving into Damariscotta Mills is always beautiful.

Here's Alewives.

 I always seem to be a little off on my dates.  There's a real  shop hop starting up in a few days.  Oh well, good excuse to go back.

Alewives has the best selection of what I consider "modern" quilt fabric around.  They also have a good selection of more garment-y type fabric like voile, lawn, linen blends, and wool.  The staff is great.  I love that they will let you wander around forever and aren't at all pushy to "help" you.  It takes me at least three rotations through the shop to start to narrow down my choices.  Addie made herself right at home next to the big basket of toys and used their bathroom a couple of times declaring she wanted her privacy and thus going by herself.

I used to always just buy whatever fabric I liked, but now I'm trying to be more focused on buying to kinds of prints and fabrics that would be good for clothes.  Here's my loot from Alewives.

There is just something so appealing about that little white shopping bag all filled up with neatly folded fabric.

I had planned to go straight home after Alewives, so I'd have at least half the day to sew, but then I decided that since it was a beautiful day and Addie was being a great shopping companion, we should hit a few more quilt shops on the way home.  If I'd had a little more time and little more money, I would have headed a little further north to Mainely Sewing.  Instead we headed back south but took a little detour towards Boothbay Harbor and stopped at On Board Fabrics.

I'd seen the sign on several previous trips but hadn't wanted to travel the three miles off route 1 and back.  Seems kind of silly now.  More likely, I'd already spent all my fabric budget at Alewives.  It was well worth the stop.  They have a lot of home dec fabric but also a decent selection of quilting fabric - lots of designer fabric and quite a few I hadn't seen before.  Addie ferreted out the toys, while I was really drawn to some bold 2-color prints.

They had a section of small-ish home dec rems for a buck a piece.  I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them yet, but I got these:

And this awesome strip of Merimekko fabric.  It's kind of shower-curtainy and about 4 1/2 feet by 1 foot, so I don't know what I'm going to do with it either.  Ideas?

If I'd been a good cupcake quester, I would have stopped at the highly-recommended Treats in Wiscasset to see if they had any cupcakes, but there's only so many times I can do the whole in and out of the car seat thing.  Instead we headed to The Mariner's Compass in Bath.  This was one of the first "real" quilt shops I went to when I first started getting into sewing.  

They have mostly what I would consider traditional quilting fabric but seem to be adding more modern fabrics.  They seem to carry mostly Moda.  I was a little tempted by some sweet little romantic prints for Addie clothes, but they just don't seem "her".  It's nice and bright in there, but there's kind of a funky smell that I can't get past.  They had a really cute toy section with one of those fabric tee-pees.  I was ready to go before Addie was.

If you're into knitting, you should definitely stop at Halcyon which is also in Bath.  I have more yarn than I'll ever be able to knit, so we skipped that, but I did decide to swing into Purl Diva in Brunswick.  It's another great yarn shop, but she also does sometimes have fat quarters of hard-to-find fabric.  Last time I was in I got some of the Heather Ross mermaid prints.  It turns out that they're closed on Tuesdays, so we headed to our next stop of Cotton Weeds in Freeport.

They also have mostly traditional fabrics, but they do have a small section of more modern fabrics.  I used to work in Freeport, so I'd often swing by there on lunch breaks to get a fabric fix.  Addie was very disappointed to find that they had no toy section, and nothing jumped out at me, so we didn't stay long.

Instead of getting back on the highway, we headed south on Route 1, so we could swing into Old World Deli.  They have the best sandwiches and cookies ever.  I had forgotten that they close for the winter.  I imagine they'll be opening up again soon.  (If you're also on a yarn mission, there's Grace Robinson on your way between Cotton Weeds and Old World.  I find the yarn overpriced and the staff somewhat stuffy, but they do have a great selection.)

As I headed home from Freeport, I debated whether or not to hit just one more fabric store.  Addie was game.  She, in fact, wanted to hit "a lot more stores", so I decided to swing in to Z Fabrics.  

They have a great selection packed in to a tiny little place.  I especially liked their selection of solids including Essex linen.  I picked up quite a few Kona colors for quilting and some of the linen and some pretty lavender voile for clothing.  No toys, but Addie had fun playing with a little suitcase full of buttons and picked out three purple ones for herself.

If you're in the market for yarn, one of my favorite yarn shops, Knit Wit, is in the same neighborhood.  And if you're still hungry, definitely stop by Micucci's to see if you can snag a Sicilian slab or some Luna Bread.  Or if you skipped your cupcake in the morning, Two Fat Cats is right there as well.

Much to Addie's disappointment, we headed home after that, but it was a great day.

Fabric Store Review - Lorraine

Since it's Black Friday, I thought I'd do another fabric store review.  (That's about the only type of store I'd be excited about walking into on this crazy shopping day.)  That and I wanted to catch up on my posts from last weekend.  And it's five in the morning, and I've been up since three or so.  What the heck?  We're in the guest room of a friend's house and my husband and younger daughter are snoring away in the background (maybe that has something to do with my not sleeping?)  Oh, and it might also have to do with the fact that I have three more days of weekend ahead of me and desperately need to get back to my sewing machine!

Okay, so back to the fabric store review . . .

On my way down to Providence last weekend, I stopped at Lorraine Fabrics in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

This was definitely not your typical quilt shop.  In fact, it really wasn't a quilt shop at all.  I was disappointed at first.  They did have some quilting weight fabric, but I could quickly see there wasn't going to be any Amy Butler or Anna Maria or any of my other favorites.  I almost left without buying anything.

But then I reminded myself that it wouldn't hurt to buy a solid fabric every once in a while.  I mean, my kids don't always have to be swimming in prints.  I've been wanting to make this tunic for awhile, and I just wasn't feeling it with any of my printed fabrics.

My favorite section was the linen section.  They didn't have a huge selection of colors (like no orange), but way more than the linen section at JoAnn, and it was only $10/yd.  I bought this pretty blue linen in the picture below.

I wish I'd bought more, but the weekend was still young, and I wasn't sure what other money-spending opportunities would arise.  It wasn't really until I got home and pre-washed the linen that I realized how nice it is.  It's a nice heavy weight and not as loosely woven as the linen I've purchased before from JoAnn.

Lorraine also had a huge selection of wool and wool blends.  I've been keeping my eye out for an icy blue wool, but no luck with that.  I don't have any wool projects in mind at the moment anyway.

There were lots of choices for notions, too.  I bought the hot pink trim in the  photo above.  I've been wanting to incorporate some kind of lace or trim like this into one of Addie's next garments, so this was a fun find.  They had lots of different colors.  Now I just have to find some fabric to match.

There was also a huge home dec section in the back that I didn't bother to check out.

I would definitely recommend this store for apparel fabrics, but I would totally skip it if you're looking for quilting fabrics.

Hope you had a great turkey day yesterday.  We had a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat with some best friends from college.  How cool is that that we still get together after more than 15 years?!

Fabric Store Review - Franklin Mill Store

So I managed to visit four fabric stores in my travels this weekend, three new and one that I'd been to before.  This is my loot:

Pretty disciplined, don't you think?  If I hadn't just spent big bucks on an Irish Dancing weekend, and if Christmas wasn't coming up, it would be a much bigger stack.

Franklin Mill Store was the first one I visited.  I know you can't judge a place by it's website, but I like their website, and I like their store.  It was my favorite of the weekend.  We got there about 20 minutes before opening time.  The front entrance looked cute and promising:

And I could see in the windows that the store really did go back almost as far as the whole building.  I didn't do the peeping tom thing or anything, but just from turning around in the driveway, I could see what looked like nice, quality yarn in the windows.  Definitely promising!

I was really anxious to get inside, but I managed to calm down and get control.  I'd seen Arabella's Cookie Store on the way in.  The cookies were good, not break-your-diet, think-about-all-morning-at-work good, but good.  The women working there were super friendly and pointed me in the direction of a Bank of America, so I could withdraw my fabric buying allotment.  By the time we did all that, it was opening time, so we went in.

The store was super spacious.  I loved that you didn't feel claustrophobic.  I would say that about the first quarter of the store was devoted to designer quilting fabrics.  They had a big selection of Amy Butler (including the (I think) older gray with blue dots that I now wish I'd picked up.), the new owl print (Tina Givens, I think), a big selection of Kokka, and lots of Denyse Schmidt's Hope Valley.  They also had a really great selection of garment-y type fabrics - lots of solids, knits, and flannels.

They had tons of notions and patterns.  My daughter picked out some cute ribbon from their huge selection, so we can try to make a leash for our dog, Myrtle.  They had a lot of webbing and even a sample leash made up.  Unfortunately, they didn't have a webbing color that matched the ribbon we picked out.  That's our new mission.

There were also a lot of really cute kits.  The one I liked best was a bag full of white wool beads and some other little pieces of felt and other accessories for making little snowmen.

That all took up about half of the store.  The second half which I didn't explore very much was devoted to yarn and home dec fabric with a little section of toy-type things.  You know, that Klutz brand, I think.  Which is always good if you have a kid with you who likes to shop but not for fabric.

The woman who checked me out (well not checked me out - you know what I mean) was super nice.  The shop gave 10% off for quilt guild members, so I showed her my New England Modern Quilt Guild card, and we chatted about that as well as about the Irish Dance competition we were on our way to.

The long and the short of it is that I would rank this store very highly amongst the ones I've visited so far.  If I lived closer, I would go there often.  My mom lives fairly close, so I will probably try to sneak in another trip to Franklin Mill Store next time I visit her.  Then again she lives even closer to The Fabric Corner which is also really great.   As far as selection, I'd say it ranks third among these three:

1. Alewive's, Nobleboro, ME (Is there a post that goes by where I don't talk about this shop?  OMG, I'm obsessed!)
2. Quilter's Way, W. Concord, MA
3. Franklin Mill Store, Franklin, MA

As far as my experience with the people working there, I'd say it's in second place.  Not only was the person who helped me friendly, but I overheard the other woman working there being super nice to another girl who was in the shop who I would guess was about 10.  Not sicky, passively agressively nice like I'm-saying-nice-things-but-I-really-want-you-out-of-my-store nice, but genuinely nice. It seems like I've heard/read a lot of stories where the fabric shopkeepers were pretty mean and cranky towards kids in their shops.

1. Alewive's
2. Franklin Mill Store
3. I'll get back to you on this one.

One of these days, I'll compile a more comprehensive ordered list.  It was actually kind of hard for me to find some good shops on my route.  I tried everything from looking at old lists on the web to looking at the retailer lists for Amy Butler and Oliver & S.

In case you're interested in a glimpse into our Irish Dancing experience, here's a photo of my daughter at these weekend's competition.  We're very proud of her.

Backpacks

 

These cute little backpacks were my big accomplishment for the weekend.  I made them from a pattern I've been coveting for a while.  When my sister mentioned that my niece wanted a backpack for her birthday, I finally committed and bought the pattern from Made by Rae.  I'm really glad I did.  It's a pretty easy, quick pattern, and I'm really happy with how the backpacks came out.  They look like something you might buy in a cute little boutique - professional - not homemade.

 

This is my two year-old, Addie modeling one of the backpacks.  I made both backpacks at the same time because I didn't think Addie would let me get away with giving one away if she didn't have one of her own.  It turns out that she loves it even more than I thought.  She's hardly taken it off, since I completed it (which makes getting her in her car seat more of a chore than usual).

So the only problem with the backpack for my niece was that I didn't finish it on time.  I guess (okay I know) I'm a procrastinator, so it seems to often happen that I'm finishing something up at the last minute then I end up being late for the party (or wherever it is I'm going) and yelling at the kids.  I decided I wasn't going to do that to us this time.  As it was, my 11 year old daughter was wonderful about helping knowing that I was trying my best to get the backpack done.  She washed Addie's face, cut her fingernails, got her dressed, and brushed her hair - all without even being asked.  Is she a saint or what?  (Note to self - go back and read this when said 11 year old is throwing an emotional, hormonal tantrum.)  I was really close, but I just didn't make it, so I threw the three to-be-sewn-together pieces in a gift bag and presented those as her gift.  She's a pretty savvy four-year-old, but she definitely thinks I'm crazy.  Oh well, I did finish it the next day and will get it in the mail for her this week.  I think she'll enjoy getting her very own mail.

In my defense, I had some pretty good excuses for being behind on things such as this family movie night sanctioned by my 8-year old son.  We ate lots of junk food and drank Shirley Temples up in my bed and miraculously didn't even spill anything.

Then my favorite somewhat local fabric store, Alewives, was having a 20% off everything sale.  I didn't really need any fabric (what halfway serious seamstress can say that with a straight face?!), didn't really have any money to spend, and I really didn't need to spend two hours that I didn't really have in the car driving there and back, but after a lot of soul-searching, I decided I just couldn't resist. Among a few other things, I finally bought the fabric for a Birdie Sling Bag.  I've had the pattern for a while, and just hadn't found the right fabric.

My final, probably most frivolous distraction was stumbling across a reference to this Pioneer Woman web site.  At first, I glanced at it quickly, checked out her "About Me" page then moved onto other things (more accurately other blogs), but something made me want to read more.  Luck would have it that she has the entire story of meeting, falling in love with, and marrying her husband on her web site.  I was immediately hooked and frittered away the whole evening reading her story instead of working on my backpacks.  There's something about it that's really appealing.  She has a great down-to-earth, self-deprecating style, and her story of marrying a rancher is just so interesting to me.  I highly recommend it.

And speaking of distractions and stories, a friend of mine just sent me this link to this writing contest where you try to write 50,000 words by the end of this month.  The idea is that you'll be in such a hurry you won't get caught up in all the things that might normally prevent you from writing a novel like plot, character development, wording, etc.  What you write might be terrible, but it might prompt you to get past whatever excuse you've been giving yourself to note write your great American (or insert your country name here) novel.  Speaking of excuses, I think I'm going to wait until next year to try this one when I can actually start on November 1st, but I love the idea.

Finally, although they really have nothing to do with anything, I just had to include these photos of Addie's first leaf-pile jumps.  She loved it.  Remember when it took so little to make you this happy?

 
 

 

New Quilt Project

I just ordered this quilt pattern from Cherry House Quilts.  I stumbled across it on the internet and have been coveting it ever since.  I normally love to use all the awesome designer fabric prints that are available, but this one is all solid colors, and for some reason it's just so appealing to me.  I can't wait to get started.

Not that I really needed a new project.  What craft addict ever really does.  I have at least three in the queue right now.  I've been working on a camera bag.  I'm just not satisfied with my purchased one that I've been putting up with for years.  I love the fabric that I'm using, but now I'm starting to understand why people use cheap muslin to develop their patterns.  I think I've managed to fix it up enough, so I'll be happy using it, and I've learned enough to improve on it the next time, but the further away from perfect it gets, the less I want to finish it.

Then I still need to bind this funky, sort of quilting project I did a few weeks ago.  I'll blog about that later.

Then I have this cool bird quilt.  My sister and I both bought the fabric for it last February at this great quilt shop in Florida.  The quilt top was super easy to put together, since the birds in the middle are just a fabric panel.  We've been trying to work on it together, so it's been a bit slow going, since we live a state apart and both of our families are so busy.  We finally got together a few weeks ago to make our quilt "sandwiches".  I have no reason to procrastinate on this project any more, since I really do love doing the free motion quilting.

Here's a close up of one of the bird sections.  Isn't it cool?!  The fabric line is called Tranquility by Sandy Gervais for Moda.

 

Oh, and I almost forgot.  I created and Adelaide Lemonade Flickr Group because I'd love to see what you make with my tutorials.  It's here.

Fabric Shopping!

It's 2:30 in the morning and I've already been up sewing for about 2 hours.  I really need to get back to bed, but I really wanted to blog first or else I never will.

I've been working on this cool Mod Sampler quilt from Oh, Fransson.  I just finished sewing the sashing in the first two rows.  There's something so satisfying about finally having all the raw edges of my squares all enclosed in the crisp white sashing.

I wanted to make some good progress because my mom is coming up today to take me on a fabric shopping spree for my birthday.  I'm very excited about this!  Last weekend I dragged the kids around on recon mission (everyone knows how fun it is to take your kids shopping).  My goal was to find Alewives Fabric which a little over an hour north from where I live.  Every time I look up a fabric that I like on a designer's site and use the various "Where to Buy" features to find shops near me that stock it, Alewives comes up, so I've been wanting to check it out for quite a while.  Oddly, both Google and the GPS built into my Blackberry put me exactly at another fabric store.  How weird is that?!  Alewive's address is 10 Main St in Nobleboro, but I ended up at 10-ish Route 1.  I was quite puzzled when I arrived.  Just that morning, I had looked at Alewive's website and thought there would have been at least some mention if they were in the process of changing their name, since I ended up at a shop called Maine-ly Sewing.  I drove by it once then decided that I had come all that way, I had better go in.  It was very nice with a good selection of designer fabrics and just a huge selection overall, but I couldn't get past the hurdle of it not being what I expected. Still puzzled, I asked the clerk if they used to be called Alewive's, and she said, "Oh no, they're in Damariscotta Mills".  Oh right, duh, Damariscotta Mills.  The clerk didn't offer much in the way of directions, and since she seemed a little insulted by my question, I didn't bother to ask.  Thank goodness for my trusty little Blackberry (I know it's not an iPhone, but it does the job).  I googled Alewives again, got better directions, and used my GPS to finally find Alewive's, and I was in Heaven!  (When I got there, the Alewive's manager says that happens ALL the time, so if you go, don't necessarily trust your GPS or Google Maps - look for route 215 instead of their mailing address.)

They had just an unbelievable selection of all the cool fabrics I've been seeing on the web but really wanted to see in person.  They even carry Merimekko.  Not that it's in my budget right now, but they did have some $6 fat quarters.  They had a nice little place for the kids to play with a basket full of toys.  The salespeople were not pushy at all.  They went about their business which that day was rearranging some of the fabric and cutting fat quarters while I circled the store 3 or 4 times trying to decide what to get.  They had a bunch of Oliver + S patterns done up.  The pictures on the patterns have never really appealed to me, but seeing the models was a different story.  They were adorable.  When I go back today, I think I may buy one.  They (Alewive's) also have a free pattern for a shopping tote where you use fusible vinyl to make it waterproof.  Very intriguing.  I'd like to try the fusible vinyl concept to make some reusable sandwich baggies.

I ended up getting a nice fat quarter 10 pack - mostly of Heather Ross's Mendocino collection - mermaids, kelp stripes, sea horses, and fish.  It's very cute.  I usually like to match up fabrics myself, but with the kids in tow, I couldn't really focus.  Plus it didn't help that I didn't even really have a plan in mind for what to make.  Alewive's also had a great selection of already matched fat quarter packs, so I took advantage of that and added 2 more, so I'd have enough for the Mod Sampler.  I'm hoping to buy the fabric for the quilt back and binding today.

The kids were really good while I shopped (and never once did the salespeople get annoyed at them taking over the toy area), and since they had to endure an over-an-hour-long car ride and another hour or so worth of shopping, I had promised them we would checkout nearby Pemaquid Beach.  It was very beautiful, but Hurricane Bill was apparently off the coast so there actually was no beach.  The water was all the way up to the grassy sand dunes and the waves were crashing up onto the pathways to the beach.  We hung out there for about an hour anyway.  My 10 year old and 8 year old played in the water with their Boogie Boards while my 2 year old who didn't like the cold water to touch her and I stood watch.  There were lots of other people swimming, too, but there was talk of dangerous rip tides, so my conscientious 10 year old and I were a little worried about that, but my not-a-care-in-the-world 8 year old had a blast.

The idea was to pretty much repeat the same day today except that it's really pouring rain right now, so the beach part may be out.  Oh well, all I really want is the fabric!

Okay enough - gotta get back to bed.