Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Adorn Me


Finally made something this week: a lace applique tank from this great and easy tutorial from Ruffles and Stuff (a fantastic blog, LOVE!)  That's also the necklace by Lauren Haupt that I posted about before.  I always make things when I have the least amount of time, like Christmas and Valentine's and Easter, guess I like the pressure, so I've been zipping all over town gathering trimmings and adornments for a work project (and fitting some exploring in at the same time):
The flower market is just bursting with peonies lately, I've been in awe.
And saw this little, pink pouf, not sure what it is, but it was pretty cute.
Then I headed to Beads of Paradise on 17th Street, which I mentioned in my first resources post.
Their selection is really quite varied: so many colors and sizes and materials and all different price ranges, my thanks to the very patient staffer who helped me!  My search also took me to Beads World, Inc. on Broadway between 37th & 38th where they have a huge array you could pore through for hours:
and close by on 6th Ave to Toho Shoji where there were even more beads, beads and more beads!:
I also found CJS (Crafts, Jewelry Supplies) on the 2nd Floor of 16 West 36th Street -- piles and piles of boxes all being unpacked and organized, who knows the treasures that could be all around.  This was on my way to Gettinger Feather.
I learned from Dan Gettinger that they only supply feathers from farm-raised fowl, not from the wild, and we chatted about the different feathers from different kinds of birds, fascinating!
Over at M&J Trimming there are walls and walls of lace, appliques, ribbons, threads, tassels, fringe, braids, rhinestones, sequins, amazing....and a whole room of buttons! 
The saleswoman who helped me was so sweet even though I had no idea what I was doing, and she happily cut me 1/2 a yard each of two styles of black Venice lace.  
Got a little lost on 37th Street on the way to my next stop, but passed Stretch House, Inc. (now I know where to find spandex!) and Kiki Riki (I'd like to make a pastel pink mini skirt!)
But finally I made it to Mood Fabrics, THE go-to-place on Project Runway.
SO inspiring: all of the colors and textures and materials, solids, prints, stripes, shirting, weaves, silks...I had so many questions!  I eyed the fancy lace:   
but ultimately was there for a more sheer fabric and decided on 1/2 a yard of silk chiffon.
I made sure to pet the shop's adorable dog, who I've loved since I saw him in this tutu picI was also looking for fusible to meld my lace applique onto my tank top and the very nice staff directed me to find double-sided fusible at Steinlauf & Stoller, Inc. just 2 blocks uptown:
And they have a fantastic supply of sewing notions, threads, needles, zippers and more.  So, at last I had enough of a haul to head back to the office:
Yep, that's a real ostrich egg with real feathers: different sizes come from different parts of the bird.  And we needed gold and black beads so I had a bunch:
And at home I looked over my findings:
Might not look like too much now, but I have some nice plans for these things.  The tank was adorned in just minutes and I was so happy that I wore it for yet another day of work today.


17 comments:

Content Director - Strong Female Leaders said...

Very cute, and quite sexy too.

Craftiness NOW said...

thanks, tris1978ton! hope you have a good holiday weekend :-)

Helen said...

Wow, so many great stores! It must've been really inspiring :)

And I love that tank, great work!

jozen said...

turned out lovely!

Cara said...

Love it! I'm so jealous you've got all these fab notions + fabric stores to choose from, too! Can't wait to see what else you cook up.

MadsaboutU said...

love the top, you look so sexy and I so glad you posted this...gave me a few ideas with my solid tanks that I haven't yet done a do over.

Craftiness NOW said...

hi Helen, yea, it was a fun field trip, if only it wasn't so warm while i was schlepping it all back to the office, haha, but i'm glad summer is finally here.

thanks, jozen! it's about time i made something.

hi ashley, thanks and thank you for visiting!

hello CaraBella, thanks so much. hopefully work will calm down a bit so there's time for some lazy summer projects :-)

thanks, MadsaboutU, i remember your repurposed tanks, looking forward to seeing your next ones!

Percy Handmade said...

Hello Craftiness! Loving your blog =) I particularly loved this post... We had a holiday in the US in November (I live in Australia) and I was amazed by how many supply stores were over there. My favourite was definitely M&J Trimmings... ohhh the walls and walls of goodies.. I want to go back! xx

Small Burst said...

Wow. So much craft goodness. Beads as far as the eye can see! From the famous words of Liz Lemon, "I want to go to there!"

Craftiness NOW said...

hi percy, thanks so much for visiting and following! that's so cool that you got to visit here, i would love to visit australia someday :-)

thanks, Small Burst, haha, love liz lemon, she could go there on her lunch hour ;-)

Noemi said...

Oh wow!!! I wish we had craft stores like these!!

Craftiness NOW said...

hi Noemi! from what i've heard from friends who've visited lately, you're so very lucky to live in portland :-)

Alely said...

that turned out great!

Craftiness NOW said...

thanks so much, Alely!

milk tea + polkadots said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
milk tea + polkadots said...

Super cute and easy!

Craftiness NOW said...

thanks, milk tea + polkadots! i realized i didn't even say how i got the lace on the tank: it's in the tutorial from ruffles and stuff, but basically you use fusible, which is like a mesh-y type fabric and just iron it on!

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...