PRW Portland 2009

I think it's safe to say, fun was had by all! It was a whirlwind weekend that I wish wouldn't have flown by so fast. I got to reunite with some friends I'd met last year in LA and I got to make lots of new friends this year. It is always so fun to actually get to chat in person with people that dig sewing as much as you do. Well this weekend there were about 50 ladies that did just that and I sincerely hope that everyone who attended had as much fun as I did. If fun is measured by lack of sleep, than I definitely hit the mark (about 10 hours total is all I got!). I came home horse too, a sign that I talked WAY too much (I hope that doesn't deter anyone from coming near me again - it might be obvious I don't get out much! lol).

The weekend started out with a day long seminar by Pati Palmer in which the topics of sewing jackets and fit were covered. She is a very informative and fun speaker to listen to. She swears she's never worked a day in her life, that is how much she loves her *job* (it's not a job to her). That evening we all ate dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory - you could tell everyone was having a great time by the noise level in the room. After dinner we had a little contest with the ugly fabric we brought - everyone ended up being a winner, my prize was a book by Kenneth King.

On Saturday, the day started bright and early at 8am. We all boarded a big yellow school bus and traveled to Fabric Depot, downtown to Josephine's & the Button Emporium, and then finally to Mill End (my personal favorite in the tour). That evening we enjoyed a nice pizza dinner at the hotel and then showed off our favorite fabric purchase, mine was some Burberry coating I got at Mill End.

Then on Sunday, a small group met in the restaurant at the Monarch Hotel for a yummy brunch and one last gab session before we all parted ways.

Here are pictures I took (and a few I snagged from Flickr). I didn't really take that many, but so many cameras were flashing all the time that I figured the event was surely covered (you know the celebrity status we all have on PR is just like being in the limelight! LOL).

My roomies Cindy and Leslie

Me and Jacqui (we live only about 2.5 hours away - yay!)

Me & Deepika being "movie stars" at Fabric Depot

Jacqui & Deepika

Nancy, Me, & Cindy Lou

Jacqui & Emilie (from Jalie)

Cindy Lou, Nancy, Deepika, & Cidell

Leslie, Cindy Lou, & Cidell

Look, everyone is wearing a Jalie top!

Me & Emilie

The conference Friday during a break

Me & Jacqui

Cindy & Christina chatting it up

Cidell & Emilie

Brunch at the Monarch

Me & Deepika

Cindy shopping for patterns at Joann's

Me, Cindy Lou, Mary, Jacqui

Me & Mary Fran

Me, Cindy, & Laura (back)

Jacqui, Cindy Lou, Nancy, Leslie, & Jennifer (front)

Me with all my Jalie garments (it was part of a contest and I brought 17 items). My prize, $20 to spend at Jalie - yippee, thank you Emilie & Jalie!!!!!

I will add one more highlight for me of the trip. I really enjoyed meeting Emilie from Jalie. She is so darn sweet and absolutely adorable! It was so fun to talk with her about the company (her mom and aunt started the company in the early 80's, but now it's just her and her mom working together running the company). I've really come to adore Jalie patterns over the past few years. I've had great experience with the fit and the directions are wonderful - very RTW results in my opinion. And the coolest part was that she brought a whole bunch of Jalie garments and she let us try them on!!!! I was so excited! I got to try on the new jeans pattern and so much more. It was fun to see her enthusiasm about the company. My fingers are crossed that Fabric Depot will start carrying their patterns. But because I hate waiting for anything, I ordered a few I had to have now (all from the new collection - the jeans, pants, & crossover shirt).

Next year the weekend is in Philly - hopefully I can attend, these events are too much fun to miss! Thanks for making it such a great weekend ladies, I wish it happened more than just once per year.

Here are a few more pics I'd like to share. Below is a ham holder that my dear roomie Cindy bought for me. Thank you Cindy (tho you probably wanted to wack Leslie & me with it since we wanted to stay up so late! lol)!!! I know I will use it in good health and will always think of you when I use it. It's even made in the USA!!!

Here is my lovely Burberry fabric. I can thank Leslie for the inspiration because she brought along a gorgeous trench she made using the black fabric. She even let us all try it on. It was a gorgeous coat and totally worthy of the Burberry fabric.

3 yds each of both black & red Burberry (thanks to my sis too, she gave me a little $$ for babysitting my nephews so she bought most of it!)

Here is the rest of my loot ~ The Kenneth King book I won in the ugly fabric contest, then I purchased the jacket book and elastics, and the fabric.com box was a goodie we all got from fabric.com (we also got seam rippers from fabric.com too, but that didn't make it into the picture).

Sorry this was such a long post, but hopefully all the pictures make it worth the length it was. If you've never been to a PR Weekend, you must go if you have the opportunity. Everyone is so friendly and you're sure to have a good great time! Next up, Disneyland photos with the world famous, totally adorable and equally as sweet Yvonne!

Finally LA Pictures

**Note - I don't know what is up with the formatting of blogger today - if this looks wonky to you, sorry! I tried to fix it, but for some reason I can't get the formatting to look the same - grr!

My apologies for taking all week to post my pictures. I honestly didn't take many (this is pretty much it except for a few duplicate ones that Leslie took that I already posted). I have seriously been sick tho this week. On Wednesday, I finally decided to go to the nurse treatment room at my doctor's office because my throat wasn't getting any better. Sure enough I was truly sick and was diagnosed with strep throat! Thankfully after almost 48 hours of antibiotics, I'm feeling much better. I sincerely hope no one I was around this weekend has gotten sick - if so I'm so very sorry. :-( So glad I listened to myself and went in, I would hate to be feeling awful still.

Me at Fabrics & Fabrics

Leslie at Fabrics and Fabrics

Jennifer, Jeanette, & Leslie at Alan's Fabrics (look at all those tropical prints!)

Cindy having a snack at F&S Fabrics

Fabrics & Fabrics

Fabric Covered Button maker at Kashcool

Shopping at some trim store, I forget the name

My loot (from left to right) ~ knit from Michael Levine's $3/yd, stretch woven from Mike's Fabrics $2/yd, red/white dot shirting from Fabrics & Fabrics $3/yd, mystery sweater-type knit from Kashcool $.50/yd

I wish I would have taken more pictures, but I always get so caught up in the moment that I forget to take pictures. Oh well, next time I'll try to take more - thanks for peeking!

I'm back!

As the saying goes, all good things must come to an end and unfortunately that holds true with the West Coast PR Weekend. I had so much fun, I still can't help but smile about it. It was great to meet all these wonderful and talented woman in person and talk sewing for three days straight! First off, my apologies for not posting my pictures yet (the ones you see below are snagged from Leslie my roomie). I really didn't take very many and still need to get them off my camera, but I've come down with some cold/virus thing and am feeling a little under the weather. Instead of making you all wait, I decided to snag hers and show off a bit of the fun.

The trip was full of fun, fabric, and friends - not necessarily in that order of course. Leslie in Austin, dvmCindy, & I were graciously picked up by Kathy Rank at the airport. We went to the hotel, stored our bags, grabbed a quick bite to eat, and headed off to our couture hand sewing class with the famous Susan Khalje. Susan is so patient and enjoyable to work with. We learned many new stitches and she even stayed an hour later than the class was supposed to go so we could finish up all the stitches she taught us. After class we had a small group dinner at Engine Co (about 20 of us) and Susan even joined us! Then it was back to the hotel ballroom for Susan's trunk show where three PR members modeled her exquisite creations!

On Saturday we shopped downtown until we dropped and amazingly enough, I only purchased 4 different fabrics. The stores really overwhelmed me. The fabrics were pretty disorganized in most places and stacked to the ceiling. I really didn't have anything in mind, but fell in love with a few things. Total spend on fabric $19 plus tax ~ I'll post a picture of them when I get my pictures uploaded.

After a fun filled day of shopping it was time for our group dinner at Adoro (Mexican cuisine). Very tasty, but I think we took up the whole restaurant! Once dinner was over, we headed back to the hotel ballroom to show off our fabrics and play Project Runway PR style with our ugly fabrics! The game was a hoot and all the models sported some pretty "unique" outfits (that is saying it politely! LOL). You can see all the videos of each model plus read all about the fun on the thread over at Pattern Review. Once the fun was over in the ballroom, Deepika and Annika came back to our room and we chatted until the wee hours of the morning.

On Sunday, we did a little more fabric shopping at a place called F&S Fabrics. Sweet PR member Brigette drove Leslie, Veronica (verosews), and me there where we met up with Cindy and Nancy (NancyWin). They have the most expensive fabrics I've ever seen, but some very gorgeous and pretty reasonable priced fabrics too. It was a neat store, but unfortunately by this time I was so sleep deprived and just ready to go home. So off the airport I went compliments of Brigette (thank you again sweetie), but not before her lovely hubby brought us all lattes from Starbucks to recaffeinate us all for our trips home (thanks Floyd!). And I must add what a cutie pie Brigette's daughter is - in the back seat we played "I Spy" and a new game she taught me, I don't know her official name for it, but it involved us making up new colors for existing colors and she always told me "oh that's a good one!" (just a sweet and polite little girl and so fun to converse with).

Here are Leslie's pics (thank hon for letting me "borrow" them)...

Roomie Leslie & I modeling our "twin" blouses compliments of Leslie!

Shopping at Mark Levine with Cindy, Cidell, Jeanette, Me, Lilia, Leslie, & Joda

At Mike's fabrics Jennifer, Jeanette, owner Erika, & me (nice tennis shoes, huh? what a dork, but I didn't need to get a blister!)

Project Runway PR style ~ Jennifer, Cindy, me (the lovely model! lol), & Leslie

I've never been so sleep deprived in my life, but it was so worth it! I can hardly wait until the next WC weekend! I'll post more pictures later, but for now, I just need to lay low and rest so I can get back to my old self (which I miss very much!).

LA or Bust

Tomorrow marks the long awaited Pattern Review West Coast Weekend in LA! I'm so excited, tho I'm not sure how excited I will be when my alarm rings at 3am. With such an early flight out, I have to get up before the crack of dawn but it will all be worth it.

Tomorrow I'm taking a handsewing class taught by Susan Khalje as well as attending her trunk show - should be inspiring. Then on Saturday we're going to shop til we drop in the garment district of LA!!! I am not going after anything particular at this point, tho I'm sure I'll find some treasures to bring home. I would like to find some more FOE in a rainbow of colors and some stretch lace trims too. I'll share my findings when I return.

I have been a busy bee sewing lately. I made the Jalie Sweetheart top last weekend, then I made three of the same top from 4/2007 issue of Burda (the first two needed tweaking) and then I also made a dress from the same issue. Oh and a blouse from 8/2007 issue of BWOF too which I worked on slowly but surely for over a week. I will share my pictures of those garments next week when I return as I just don't have enough time today to get everything photographed and edited and still get everything around the house done that needs to be taken care of before I get into bed.

Your prayers and positive thoughts for a safe trip would be appreciated. I really am not that keen on flying and traveling away from my family makes me a tad nervous. I just pray that I'm safe as well as my family while I'm away.

Lastly, thank you for the sweet birthday wishes, you're all so darn sweet! *smooch*