Wooly Goodness

Can you believe that I haven't finished sewing my mother-in-law's gift yet? I promised it last week, but since then, I haven't used my machine at all. I have a renewed knitting mojo, which I'll discuss in some other post some other time, but for now, it's all about sewing. I've got a 6-day weekend coming up and I plan to be up to my ears in thread. Oh, there is one important bit of knitting news. This is really only important to the locals. Last Saturday, I went to Knitting in La Jolla and she was having an anniversary sale. Yarns are between 10 and 50% off. Manos and Silky Wool are 50% off, a couple of Rowan yarns (All Seasons Cotton, for one) are 40% off, Kidsilk Haze is 30% off, etc. She had a TON of Manos in lots of colors - mostly solids. I plan on going back tomorrow to get more Manos. The sale is going on for another week and a half.

Anyway, on to the sewing. I've decided to draft my own skirt pattern. I have a book that tells you how to do it based on your personal measurements, and I feel that I have enough sewing experience that I can add features to make the skirt fit me well. If the pattern turns out well, I'll use it over and over. I've decided to one-up myself and sew my first wool skirt. Winter (in a manner of speaking) has arrived, if by winter you mean temperatures below 70 degrees and a few sprinkles. I have some wool fabric that I purchased in Boston, but I just wanted new fabric. You know how that goes? So, I took a ride up to Yardage Town in Escondido (for the locals, again). I've been to several of the Yardage Town locations and most of them, pardon my French, suck. I even have one in my little neighborhood and, it's OK in a pinch, but it...well...it sucks. So, imagine my surprise when the location in Escondido turned out to be a real treasure trove. They had 3 racks of wool fabric, another of just suiting wool fabric, multiple racks of silk (dupioni and charmeuse), cute corduroy and denim fabric, knits and a lot of cotton, both stretch and regular. They also had gauzy cotton for breezy summer tops. The entire downstairs is remnants, and I found a couple of great pieces there. They had a lot of patterns, notions, etc. too. It was a real shocker. Go figure. Anyway, on to the fabric:



This is going to be my skirt and lining. Isn't that wool fabulous? Can't you just see it paired with a burgundy or pumpkin colored top and knee high boots? The lining is polyester, which is kind of yuck, but it's not as plasticky as other polyester linings. Trust me, I was very tempted by the silk charmeuse for a lining. I also found these on the remnant tables:



The flash is obscuring things, but the one on the left is deep charcoal gray suiting fabric and the one on the right is kind of a taupy brown with blue lines running through it. They were $3 a yard - both wool!