Category: metro fabrics

Kyle in the city

~ velosews ~ 19 Comments

In case you don’t already know Kyle of Vacuuming the lawn, she’s a sewing blogger who sews a lot and is know by lots of sewers and fabric store owners.

Our Mood purchases – pic taken by Meg

Kyle has her finger on the sewing pulse. That’s how I noticed her blog many moons ago. That and her great passion for sewing, flowers and food. Chicken pot pies and mac n cheese.

Swatch wasn’t at Mood when we visited. Neither was Tim Gunn. We visited 7 stores in 1 day.

I’m still reeling from our NY shopping day. Where do I start?

Was because when we met up we just had a ball?

Was it because the Mac n cheese at lunch was so good – just like Kyle had mentioned on her blog?

Kyle is the most organised sewing shopper on the planet. I’m biased.
We were high fiveing throughout our sewing shopping day.
Kyle is great at tweeting too. Kyle wore her McCalls 6078 cowl top and J Sterns design jeans. Following her sewing experiences on her blog has been a joy to support.

Kyle with her Tim Tams and the bag she made for PR weekend.

Here is Kyle’s write up about our shopping day in New York. I’m so glad we went to Kashi first at Metro Textiles. 

Standing with Kyle, Kashi and Barbara – pic taken by Kashi’s great assistant

At his store we met Barbara, another PRer. Kashi was really warm and accommodating. He does know his fabric.

While the three of us sewers were chatting all things sewing, Kashi was showing me of silk prints so I could see them, tell him how many yards I wanted and still keep chatting with Kyle and Barbara. We had a lot to chat about. 

Thanks for taking these pics Kashi. We were kacking ourselves (ie. having a ball).



A bit of everything from Kashi.
Mood purchases.
Fabric and notions from City Quilter. Can you spy the NY lamninated print here?

I took this pic to get my bearings during the week.

This is Kyle’s favourite row at Pacific Trimming. This store is 3 stores wide!!
The staff are very helpful and will let you know if they don’t have any notions you are looking for.

During my week I found True Mart on West 26th St and 7th Ave.

Searching for fabric around Rockafeller Centre…veering off course

I bought navy woollen fabric. The roll on the shop floor didn’t have enough length for a coat so I was given this end roll at a discount and then bought the full length I needed from a roll they had stored downstairs. 

About NY:
A week in NY isn’t enough even when staying in the garment district. Sightseeing time is at a premium. DH and I did cover 3 boroughs in one day on the subway. My DB and SIL were also in NY at the time. That turned out to be our family day out.

Carlo’s bakery was fun (1 hour wait) but the pizza place next door was amazing. The Puerto Rico parade on the Sunday was huge and its crowd on 5th Ave was truly impressive.

The wharf to Ellis Island re opens on 4th July.

DH and I spent an afternoon circling NY by ferry and we also did a hop on hop off bus tour and we saw a Broadway show.

Grand St in Chinatown had some fabric places too.



We got to the top of the Rock on a cloudy day after visiting Ground Zero.
So the NY Mets were thrashed at the Tuesday night game we saw. The Mets now my team.
What I loved was the whole experience from changing trains to get there with the St Louis fans, being part of the local crowd, watching the planes fly into LaGuardia Airport next door to eating real hot dogs and Crackerjacks.   
Kyle’s bag is now my Fashionary bag.

Thankfully Friday was Kyle in the city day shopping for fabric and notions. Lots of notions.

Here’s the mac n cheese I made on our first day home. Spicy ham and mushroom mac.

Total NY fabric weight tally  – 15 pounds. And I wore me-made clothes everyday.
It’s all about the fabric.

MMM’13 every where

~ velosews ~ 8 Comments

I feel most comfortable around bolts of fabric, so back home I was at Metro Fabrics checking out their faux furs and their winter stock with the littlest niece (LN). Expect to see a white fur coat using Myimage patterns for her at the end of this month. This coat will be her birthday pressie. New challenge. New sewing deadline. Me-Made jumper, Me-MadeYalta top and Me-Made green jeans.

We were at Metro Fabrics for all of 15 minutes and LN kept hugging the faux furs. I would have done the same – if no one was looking.

The previous day I was catching the ferry to work in Perth before flying home that night in a me-made ponte dress. I came home for the weekend for Easter.

Dyeing fabric is a real skill as is colouring eggs. The red colour needed vinegar so the colour isn’t strong. The blue eggs had vinegar added to the dye. Huge colour difference.

We started the morning with a quiet local breakie, wearing a Jalie double outfit. Me-made Jalie criss cross top and me-made Jalie jeans before the big family ongoing lunch. 
Then Monday morning was a very early flight back to Perth wearing a me-made knit jacket (not blogged) and me-made vintage inspired (Mad Men maybe?) dress. 

This smocking sample about is something I did on the flight over using left over bobbin threads, a scrap of silk gingham inspired by the latest Threads magazine. So now I’m thinking do I go small and smock fancy patch pocket or go hard and do a bodice? Or smocking on long sleeves using silk?

I’m looking forward to a MMM13 meet up soon.

Spotted by Rebecca

~ velosews ~ 7 Comments

Wandering into Metro Fabrics to contemplate making lingerie, Rebecca looked at me and said “I know you”. And she does – through these posts. Then it felt like I was meeting up with a long lost friend. She’s been very succesful in making bras through the bra sewalong via Amy’s Cloth Habit posts.

Notions available at Metro Fabrics

Ok. So our mutual excitment didn’t lead to an obligatory pic, but it did lead to some bra-making enabling and we then headed to The Remnant Warehouse so Rebecca met Anne, Rhona, Renata, Sharon and the rest of the Alexandria ASG sewers.

Notions at Metro Fabrics

So when Rebecca asked, where do you get a separating zip that’s long enough for a Minoru jacket, I took her the dance part of The Remnant Warehouse and we trekked through the dance fabrics, bolts of stretch fabrics, amazing notions and lastly into the room with the buckets of zippers and bolts of linings. I have to sit down.

Notions at Metro Fabrics

I didn’t take pics of the fabric at Metro Fabrics, just some of the lingerie notions for those of you want to find them in Sydney. This is just some of their stock. Go there with a project in mind or else you’ll have sensory overload with what Metro Fabrics has in stock. The owner said he used to supply to Berlie and he still supplies to Booby traps.

I’m not quiet ready to delve into making bras just yet…but soon.

Looking forward to meeting more sewers next week at Tessuti’s. The details are on Little Betty Sews blog.