Sewing Studio Trip

So, in my bi-annual grand tradition, my Independence Day was spent in the best of ways - fabric shopping! The Sewing Studio in Maitland puts their entire store on sale for 40% off on July 4th and New Year's Day every year - and the 40% off extends to items already in their clearance sections. I love this store anyway just because of the quality of products they sell. If you need really high end fabrics to make a wedding dress or a good wool suit or anything like that, this is the best store in Central Florida to get them from. They also have an enormous quilting section that carries Michael Miller and Alexander Henry and Riley Blake and other big names in the quilting cotton world, so this is a destination for those as well. I you live in the vicinity of Orlando, I highly recommend heading to their store - you will not regret it! So, in my grand tradition of bragging documentation, I'm gonna show off what I got. Be warned, it's a lot this time. Don't judge!

Anyway, since this was their big sale, the place was packed with sewists of all kinds. Once again I forgot to take pictures of the mayhem (bad blogger!), but trust me when I say it was cramped in there. This time we went earlier than we have ever gone before in hopes of snagging more goodies before they were gone. I certainly wasn't disappointed :) I started off in the clearance sections, like I always do - how can you resist an additional 40% off their already 50% off prices?!

 These were my first grabs - the folded pieces are quilting cottons. The emerald green with pin dots is from Dear Stella and I grabbed 3.5 yards for a dress for $3.39 per yard. The green with medallions on is a Moda fabric and they only had 1.4 yards left of this so I grabbed the whole piece for $4.75 (this may be a trim on a dress I have planned). The blue with polar bears was just too cute to pass up - it's from Timeless Treasures and I grabbed 1 yard for $3.30. The dark blue with flowers is a satiny polyester material remnant - it's a 1.1 yard piece and it was $3.00. The pink is 1.38 yards of 100% linen and it was $3.00.

My next stop was the "sale annex" room where they have old stock as well as garment industry remnants for really cheap. The fancy printed orange material is actually a Robert Kaufman Laguna Jersey, which I have always heard praised but been too cheap to buy myself. I grabbed 2 yards of this for $8.70 to try out and see if the fabric is really all it's cracked up to be. The teal fabric is a mystery industry remnant piece - it seems like some kind of cotton spandex, though I'm not sure at all of the content. I grabbed 2.5 yards for $7.50. The dark gray is actually silk habotai that has a small dark spot that repeats throughout the bolt. Since I would only use this for lining, I don't mind the little spot, so I grabbed 3 yards for $9.45. The coral pink is just a polyester lining material that I grabbed 3 yards of for $7.20.

This set was the most exciting to me - the coral pink is cotton voile! It's buttery soft and I can't wait to use it. I've always heard everyone say how great it is, but I could only find Amy Butler prints for $17 or $25 per yard, which just wasn't happening. Well this time around, they had solid colors of voile for $6.49 each (regular price) and oh my gosh they are soft like buttah. If the lighter colors weren't so sheer I would've bought more, but wanting to try it out for the first time I just grabbed 4 yards of this awesome coral pink for $3.89 per yard :) The black is 2 yards of cotton batiste since it seems to come in handy a lot for accents and it was $3.48 per yard. The green was really hard to accurately photograph - it looks much too blue in this photo. The green is actually a more pea green color than the emerald shade shown here. It's a Robert Kaufman Classic Cotton (or something like that - I know it said classic something) and it has a chambray looking weave and it's soft and thin, not quite like the voile but close.  I grabbed 3 yards of this for $2.79 per yard.

I'm always a sucker for the clearance fat quarters since they always seem to come in handy when I least expect it. I grabbed all of these for $0.90 each :) I got a few duplicates because I plan to make a bag or something for my sister eventually. The sale annex had quite a bit of upholstery fabric this time, and I grabbed this 3/4 yard remnant for $2.25 and 10 yards of pretty brown satin trim for $6.00 - how can you go wrong there? I'm going to use these for a coffee table turned bench :) And I was thrilled to find so many invisible zippers in the sale annex - I have a rather ridiculous stash of regular zippers that I got thrifting, but I never have invisibles. I grabbed the neutral colors for around $1.50 each just to have in my stash since they always come in handy (white, gray, black and brown), but the other more vibrant colors were all $0.90 or below (the cheapest being $0.45). I even grabbed a few fancy metal separating zippers and that white on in the bag is separating with about 7 pulls on it - those were $1.20 each - can't go wrong there! The trims were just super cheap (the white was only $0.40 for 10 yards, lol), and I've been embracing the idea of tasteful trim usage on my makes ever since my floral plantain (I love that neckline trim!) so I thought these would be a fun way to try things out. The needles were just to stash and that Olfa mini cutter is so cool! It was only $1.50, so I grabbed one.

So, obviously I bought a whole bunch of stuff at The Sewing Studio and had a ton of fun. But of course that wasn't enough :) After a reviving lunch, we went by Joann's to shop more. I have to admit, I've been a pretty big snob against Joann's fabric. It used to be that every time I would go, I was just surrounded by synthetic fibers that I had no interest in working with. This time though, I was quite impressed by the quality I found - Joann's had really stepped up their game! First off I went to the Gertie fabric section ...

I was pretty taken aback with the discount on the designer lines - these were 60% off and then you could use the 20% off your whole purchase coupon on top of that! I grabbed 2.5 yards of the gray with kitties poly chiffon for $4.79 per yard, 2.5 yards of the swiss dot roses for $4.79 per yard (and I am totally going to make Butterick 6217 just like the pattern cover photo!), 1 yard of the teal with cherries rayon (it was all they had) for $4.00, and 2.4 yards of the white with cherries cotton poplin for $4.15 per yard. 

These were all from the red dot clearance section, which was already marked down then 50% off and then the 20% off that. The pink floral is called "Vivie Bloom" by DeLeon Fabrics for Alexander Henry - they only had 1.4 yards and it was $4.12, the blue flowers is a gauzy cotton only had 1.36 yards left and it was $3.80, and the black and white flowers is a nice rayon that only had 1.5 yards left and it was mistakenly put in the 60% off section, so I only just now realize that I was charged full price for it - ugh. Apparently I paid $12.00 for this piece, when I thought I'd be paying $3.20. Thanks a lot, Joann's.

And these are the knits I snagged - so exciting! The first one there is actually a charcoal gray rayon spandex jersey from the red dot section and I paid $7.20 for 2 yards. The fun print there is from the Doodles collection, which I am really pleased with so far (it's designed for kids clothes, but not all of it is super kid-ish), and I grabbed 1.5 yards for $9.00 (which is yet again more than I was supposed to have paid, but only just realized ... maybe I'm not so enchanted with Joann's after all ...), and the teal and gray stripe is a poly rayon knit from the red dot section that I got 2 yards of for $7.20.

This is the piece I am most excited about! Sally from The Quirky Peach posted about finding this awesome knit print at her Joann's a week or so ago, so when I was in the store I searched all over and finally found it - I was elated :) This is from the Doodles collection and it's a 100% cotton jersey (just like the blue and green print above) and I got it for the correct price - $5.19 per yard. I grabbed 3 yards not knowing if I want to make a dress or not, but at least i have enough to do what I want when I decide. Isn't it awesome?!

And I can never pass up the sale patterns and buttons - this time it was McCall's so I grabbed the ones on my list I always have on hand. The buttons were all 40% off and then another 20% off, so I grabbed a few I liked. The black ones are contenders for my Emelie cardigan, and the pink ones have a pretty iridescence to them and are flower shaped - so cute!

So there you have my weekend shopping spree :) I just finished washing everything last night (and there were casualties - I'm trying not to let it get me down!), so hopefully tonight I will at least get to whip out a t-shirt or something. It's been too long since I had a successful make and I'm starting to get antsy, lol. At least now I have plenty of stash to work with so I need to get going on turning these into wearable garments :)