I Hauled Fabric

Robin, Sunnie, and I left yesterday morning around 7:30 and headed to Missoula for the day. Robin needed to drop her Janome 6600 off for service—neither of us will use the dealer here—Sunnie is always up for an adventure, and I had some fabric shopping to do. The drive down was cool and pleasant, although we arrived before most of the stores were opened. I adjusted my route a bit and we started at Joann Fabrics, which opened at 9 am. I found a couple of clearance fabrics in two-yard chunks.

I’ll probably use these for muslins, although they are in colors I can (mostly) wear, so if the muslins are wearable, I’ll have a couple of extra tops. I cannot do mustard yellow. I am hoping that top fabric will read more white/pink than yellow once it’s made up, because it is pretty and I like it.

After Joanns, we headed to Vicki’s Quilts Down Under. Robin was looking for more Halloween fabric she bought there last time, but it was all gone. I had fun in the back room with the garment fabrics and picked up two lengths.

The top fabric is a rayon challis and the bottom fabric is a rayon jersey.

[Let me just say, preemptively, that I would like a wider range of colors, but sometimes fabric colors are almost as limited as RTW clothing colors. I happily would have bought emerald green if I could find it anywhere.]

We dropped Robin’s machine off, stopped at Goodwill, then went to Kohls. I didn’t buy anything there—everything is in muddy earth tones (or teal) and too short—but I did see quite a few ponte pieces, including a black ponte sheath dress. I tried that one on just to evaluate the style and sizing. I like mine better.

Our next stop was the mall. Sunnie wanted to shop at Chicos. I thought we might also get lunch at the mall, but apparently, the pandemic finished off Caffe Dolce once and for all and both their locations are now closed. We went to Red Robin, instead, but that turned into a teaching moment for the kitchen and wait staff who didn’t bother to tell us that the chicken for our salads was frozen. They made us wait far too long for our food, although the salads were delicious when we finally got to eat them.

After lunch, we visited another thrift store. I had not been to this one as it is in a part of Missoula I don’t frequent, but it was large, clean, and well stocked. I will visit again.

By then it was after 3 pm. We headed downtown to the Confident Stitch. I know that merchants in downtown locations want people to come downtown to shop, but honestly, there is a reason people go to malls in the suburbs. Missoula’s downtown is always congested to begin with. Throw in some construction on top of that, and I had to drive around—and around and around—for about 20 minutes in order to find a place to park. Sunnie had brought her handicapped tag, but even that didn’t help us. We finally found a parking spot and made it to the store.

I’m on the mailing list for The Confident Stitch, so I knew they were having a 20% off Labor Day sale. I also knew which fabrics I wanted. These are both Goldie Olding fabrics, from a line called In The Neighborhood.

There was still plenty of the blue/turquoise print, although it was going fast. The pink was gone save for this remnant of 1-1/3 yards. That is enough for a flowy tank top. I don’t wear many tank tops, and I got rid of most of the ones I had, but when it’s 96 degrees outside, sometimes they are a nice option.

We finished off the afternoon with scoops of ice cream from Sweet Peaks, a Montana company. DD#1 knows the owners and worked at the Sweet Peaks here one summer. I had Campfire S’Mores, which was delicious.

Getting home took a bit longer than we wanted due to a few residual tourists, but I arrived home to find two packages of even MORE fabric. The first one is from KnitFabric.com. These are all jersey knits:

Again, I’d order a wider range of colors if I could find them. The black jersey is earmarked for a simple waterfall cardigan to replace one that I have just about worn out.

And finally, these came from Stylemaker Fabrics:

Yay! Hot, screaming, retina-scorching pink!

I’ll have plenty too keep me busy. I also traced New Look 6555, which is that dolman top.

There are only three pattern pieces to this one: Front/sleeve, Back/sleeve, and neckband. This should be a quick sew.

I’m still working on warm-weather tops. It is supposed to be 94 degrees here today. I have WS for the day and his mother said he could help me around the property, but I think once we bring in tomatoes, cukes, peppers, and tomatillos, we’ll be looking for inside projects.

I was home for about half an hour last night when our fire department got paged out for a structure fire in our neighborhood. I went to see if the firefighters needed food but ended up getting drafted to make sure they stayed hydrated. I’ve been on enough fire scenes to know how to be useful without getting in the way. I was there until it got dark and the fire was mostly out. The husband didn’t roll in until about 3 o’clock this morning.