Debby and Sheryl’s Most Excellent Fabric Adventure!
It was a long time coming. Debby Bowles won Peggy Sagers’ December Fabric Tour to New York back in March. December finally arrived and with Christmas-like anticipation off she went. Sheryl Belson, also a Plano ASG member, tagged along and they did indeed have a MOST excellent adventure! Here’s what they had to say about their trip……
There were 21 of us on the tour, all as enthusiastic about fabric as we were. We traveled to each location by charter bus with plenty of room for us and our purchases. Each stop on the tour was at a designer wholesale outlet. The first day we visited dealers with primarily US designer cuts; the second day was devoted to European designer cuts. And of course, no Fabric Tour to New York would be complete without a stop at Mood where we did not see Tim Gunn but we did see Swatch. Each stop was filled with an overwhelming variety of beautiful and often unique fabrics. We were thrilled with the designer fabrics in colors and styles we don’t always see at home. Each location had shelves and shelves of fabric rolls to wander through. And the wholesale prices made everything hard to resist.
Debby came home with beautiful leather for a coat and a purse. You must ask her about her “near miss” purchasing alligator to make a purse! She found some beautiful silk prints at Mood that she plans to use in the bias workshop that Markita is hosting beginning in January and has reportedly been petting a luscious sweater knit since she came home with it. Sheryl came home with a Prada golden metallic fabric for a jacket to be paired with a sheath dress made with pink Ralph Lauren silk. She also came home with some scuba knit to try making into a winter dress. And her grandest find was 6 yards of gorgeous black wool/cashmere on a remnant table for $12.50/yard! This is by no means a complete list, but it gives you a feel for the great things we saw and bought. It is hard to find a place to put all the stash we came home with and it will take more than a year to work our way through it all!
We would both highly recommend this tour! The next one will be in April and is expected to be twice as large as our tour group was. We wouldn’t trade the fun experience and access to incredible fabrics and prices for anything.
