A Pledge Broken...

...so I'm gonna dust myself off, confess my stumble, and move on making today the first day of my new pledge.

Here is my confession ~
I broke my fabric pledge. I had sewing friends scheduled to come to town this weekend and we were going to spend the weekend together fabric shopping in the garment district. However, this is not what broke my vow. I can shop the garment district and not buy since I now work in the midst of the district, I don't feel any pressure to buy. 

What made me break my vow is that Chic Fabrics posted to Instagram that they were closing at the end of January because they lost their lease. I didn't partake in the Paron's closing sale because I felt I should have done more to support them but I'm in Chic Fabrics at least once a month. So pledge broken.

Let me back up and tell you how I spent two wonderful days and one night with an amazing group of women. Cennetta and I had been speaking about her coming to NYC in January for a couple of months. Airfares and hotel costs are the cheapest to NYC during the months of January through March so we planned for the MLK weekend. 

During that time a few other sewists joined in but we ended up with a small group of four ~

Friday Evening ~
I get off work at 5pm and almost everyone was arriving in NYC after 8pm so I took myself to see Hidden Figures.  If you haven't seen this movie, please see it as soon as you can because it is AMAZING. The story it tells about these three women is awesome and the 60s fashions are all fantastic. I will be seeing this movie again because it was just that good!

Katherine G. Johnson, Mary Jackson, Dorothy Vaughan 

and the actresses who portrayed them.

A church scene with the women dressed in their Sunday Finest

The black computing staff at NASA

After the movie, I met up with Gaylen (Gmariesews, CarriageCornerB&B) and Andrea (knitknac) for dinner while we waited for Cennetta's (Mahogany Stylist) plane to arrive. I had the best dinner, dessert and conversation with these women.

Saturday in the Garment Center ~
Cennetta is one of the Mood Sewing Network Bloggers but she'd never been to the Mood Store in NYC. She purchases her fabric from the Mood website. Because of that we made Mood our first stop where we spent a good portion of our time.

Cennetta with Eric, Owner of Mood Fabrics

Here is what I bought at Mood with a lot of enabling from my fellow sewists ~

L to R - Lt. Blue Tencel Denim, Paisley Print Cotton Stretch Twill

Roberto Cavello Denim w/Lycra that three of us purchased

Our next stops were SIL Threads, Spandex House and Pacific Trimmings. After that we took a quick break at Pret A Manger to rest and regroup. While there it started to snow, so in the snow we headed over to Chic Fabrics, our last stop of the day.

Here is what I bought at Chic Fabrics ~

L to R - a white pique ponte, a printed stretch jersey

and a border print ponte in black, red, grey and white

We talked to the owner about his situation and future plans. Of course, the Landlord has raised the rent, but an offer was made to make the space smaller and let him stay. If it's not accepted, he will move all of his stock out at the end of the month to a warehouse and look for another space in the district. Though after speaking with both him and Eric at Mood Fabrics, the rents that are being charged in the district are rising at alarming rates. We may see other fabric store closures in the future.

In the snow we trudged back to the hotel to wait for our dinner reservations at Rosa Mexicano. I have no pic of this although Sheila (sheila-ctz) and Olgalyn (O! Jolly! Crafting Fashions) both joined us for dinner. This is because while Rosa Mexicano has great Mexican food, the lighting is not conducive to taking photos. When we hit the street, it was still snowing, cold and dark. Yeah we were making it to the subway back to the hotel.

A few selfies that I got from Andrea ~

Andrea and Sheila

Gaylen and Andrea

Gaylen and I headed out after that. She graciously drove me home before heading back to the Inn. It was a wonderful couple of days. There were so many great conversations, a lot of fabric buying and quality time with fellow sewing sistahs who love our craft as much as I do ~ even though there was a lot of knitting going on! *LOL*

I'm headed back to my sewing machine since our offices are closed for MLK Day tomorrow. I have to finish up the cardigans that I started weeks ago.

...as always more later!