The Hardest Button To Button

Red Buttons, originally uploaded by mooimadeit.

My faaaaaavourite thing to look for in clothing when I'm browsing, shopping, or making are the little details! They are the things that make items unique - some piping that adds some crispness, a contrasting fabric trim, some complimentary bias binding framing a neckline and fabulous eye catching buttons!

Since returning from Europe I've spent two weekends in Sydney and there's a button shop on King Street in Newtown that I've walked past numerous times but never entered so I finally got past the front door this month.

The store is called All Buttons Great And Small. It's a small store, but buttons are small too and they have PLENTY to choose from in every colour, shape, material and pattern imaginable. Check these out:

Brown Buttons, originally uploaded by mooimadeit.

Green Buttons, originally uploaded by mooimadeit.

Blue Buttons, originally uploaded by mooimadeit.

Blue Buttons, originally uploaded by mooimadeit.

Blue Buttons, originally uploaded by mooimadeit.

I ended up settling on a small pack of these. After coming back from Paris my immediate thoughts were NAPOLEON! I love them. I'm sure they're going to inspire a great piece. I'm thinking perhaps a cute black winter cape jacket with lapels?

Napoleon Buttons, originally uploaded by mooimadeit.

I hear there are some similar stores right here in Melbourne so I will have to scope them out sometime soon. Recommendations welcome!!

Defrost my heart

Moo I Made It In Montmartre, originally uploaded by mooimadeit.

Oh, just when I managed to start convincing myself I'm acclimatising back to Melbourne winter, I woke up this morning to an ice encrusted car. It's true. I could have cried.

Anyway, it's my excuse to try and warm myself from the inside with some images to remind me there is a world of warmth and colour out there, and inspire me to do something CREATIVE this week and not just hide under my doona all day which is no doubt what I will WANT to do! Hope it helps warm your day as well.

The photo above is of the front of a store that I found just up the street from where we stayed in Montmartre in Paris. Can you believe it? You can imagine how it made me smile. I like to pretend my Parisien twin runs the store.

Curtain at Versailles, originally uploaded by mooimadeit.

Palácio Nacional da Pena, originally uploaded by mooimadeit.

Musee d'Orsay, originally uploaded by mooimadeit.

Paris At Night, originally uploaded by mooimadeit.

Colourful Tiles Of Lisbon, originally uploaded by mooimadeit.

Panteão Nacional, originally uploaded by mooimadeit.

Streets of Lisbon, originally uploaded by mooimadeit.

Streets of Lisbon, originally uploaded by mooimadeit.

Streets of Lisbon, originally uploaded by mooimadeit.

Handmade in Lisbon, originally uploaded by mooimadeit.

Amigurumi = JOY!

kawaii amigurumi *___*, originally uploaded by ::sämyii::.

Look at these would'ya! Aren't they just divine? I want to learn how to make them, I think they are gorgeous.

I learnt a few basic crochet stitches when I was younger. My Mum was a very keen crocheter when I was younger - oh my, some of my earliest textile memories are of the ponchos, tops and bun holders my Mum made for my sister and I.

I tried to teach myself again a couple of years ago but gave up after finding it was giving me a headache because I didn't have a decent light in the house and my cats kept attacking the balls of wool. And I have a feeling having two double jointed thumbs doesn't help matters either, but I'm willing to give it another shot!

So I'm doing a call out to my fellow Melbourne crafties who want to sign up with me. I see that CAE have a 1 day class coming up end of August - any one game to do the class with me? I'm going to do the one on Sunday 31st August.

Yes -- I know, I know I'm a complete course junkie. I love learning new stuff! I also decided the only way I can possibly survive this winter of my discontent is to DANCE! I have started an 8 week 'Latin Funk' class. Sure I feel like a total unco, especially watching our incredible African Brazillian instructor but hey, at least it's fun.

Fabric shopping in Lisbon

P7103222-500, originally uploaded by mooimadeit.

FABRIC SHOPPING IN LISBON

Walking the streets of gorgeous Alfama, the oldest area of Lisbon, is like colour therapy en plein air. The colourful tiles that adorn every building in Alfama left me especially hungry for fabric that replicated these patterns.

I wasn't sure where to start though. I hadn't been able to find much information about fabric shopping in Lisbon online prior to leaving. And it's not really the type of thing you expect to find in something like Lonely Planet's Best Of Lisbon Guide!

My search was further complicated by the fact that 'fabrico' seemed to appear in the names of many shops... that were clearly not selling fabric. I believe it means they 'make' whatever it is they are selling there on premises. In fact I just looked it up now and the Portuguese word for 'fabric' is 'tela' 'tecida'.

I thought my best bet might be to ask someone at the Museum Of Decorative Arts (Museu Escola de Arts Decorativas Portuguesas) if they knew where I might find some traditional fabrics but the lady at the store didn't understand and just told me no - I think she thought I was asking if they sell it there.

Eventually I was pointed in the right direction by a fantastic vintage clothing store/ cafe in the Baixa-Chiado district called A Outra Face De Lua, and turns out we were just a couple of streets away from three fabric stores! I was told the larger one in particular was BIG and had some fabrics at 'very nice' prices.

You need to locate the street RUA DE AUREA, in the BAIXA-CHIADO district (closest Metro is ROSSIO) which just comes off the Praca Dom Pedro IV (Rossio Metro). There is a big H&M store about halfway down this street on a corner, as well as the Discoteca Amalia music store (with a little shrine to the fado music queen Amalia Rodrigues in the window). Nestled amongst these are several fabric stores including the one above, and these two as well:

P7103223-500, originally uploaded by mooimadeit.

P7103218-500, originally uploaded by mooimadeit.

FEIRA DOS TECIDOS was the largest of the stores with about 3 mezzanine levels of fabrics - from dress cottons to woollen suiting material to towel and remnants boxes which were on sale and you could purchase PER KILO!

Seeing by this stage we were VERY aware that every item we bought on holiday, we would then have to pack and cart around with us for the rest of the trip, I had given myself a rule for fabric shopping - I wasn't there to stock up on CHEAP fabric I could just get at home. I wanted fabrics that were different and special. I.e. - I behaved myself.

This fabric caught my eye, displayed in the front window of Feira Dos Tecidos, as it had some of those wonderful patterns that remind me of the Portuguese tiles.I love this fabric so much I got 3 metres of it. I'm thinking some kind of summer maxi dress to show off the full pattern.

P7203654-500, originally uploaded by mooimadeit.

P7203655-500, originally uploaded by mooimadeit.

P7203656-500, originally uploaded by mooimadeit.

This fabric below I picked up at one of the other stores, in the lower level where they had a whole table full of remnants folded up with details of how many metres there were (all about 1.5m or 2m max) and their prices. This is so different from what I might usually buy but I liked how there were two shimmery tones - a kind of light fawn, and this greenish silver. I have absolutely NO idea what I am going to make with it though so any suggestions are welcome!

P7203657-500, originally uploaded by mooimadeit.

P7203659, originally uploaded by mooimadeit.

Fabric shopping in Paris (Pt II)

FABRIC SHOPPING IN PARIS (PART II)
- my tips and purchases

So, I only had a chance to make a couple of fabric purchases whilst in Paris. I perused a couple of small stores just near the courtyard with a carousel, at the base of the stairs which lead up to the Sacre Coeur. I don't think my boyfriend would have been very impressed if I lost a few hours in one of the huge fabric stores... but there's always next time!

P7203665-500, originally uploaded by mooimadeit.

I was charmed by the recurring classic deer motif on this fabric. It feels like it is wool, but is still light and not too heavy. I am thinking of making it into a little jacket
- perhaps a capelet style jacket. Maybe some piping or snazzy buttons could be a nice embellishment without going too overboard seeing the pattern is so detailed already. What do you think?

Paris Fabric, originally uploaded by mooimadeit

This one feels like silk. I might end up hanging onto it for a while because I just don't feel I have the skills to sew such a fine material yet. But I couldn't help myself from purchasing it - it just looks and feels so luxurious, this photo really doesn't do it justice. I'm envisaging something like a draped halterneck style dress. Hopefully I have enough fabric for it! Or even a draped halterneck style top could be nice for summer and be dressed up or down.

I purchased both of these fabrics from

GALERIES DES TISSUS
7, Rue de Steinkerque. Paris
Metro: Anvers

Even though the handful stores I entered in Montmartre were quite small, they were still somewhat rather overwhelming - absolutely packed to the rafters with fabric! It wasn't exactly the the most browser friendly environment. One store just had everything kind of flat packed on top of each other so you could only see a slim sample of what a fabric looked like and it was very difficult to get out for a proper inspection. And truly, fabrics were precariously piled right up to the ceilings. There are a few photos of some of the stores on Flickr if you search for 'Paris fabric' but I wasn't game enough to take photos while I was there.

GALERIES DES TISSUS was a little nerve wracking, in that the gentleman behind the counter, who I assume was the owner -- an extremely well dressed and refined looking older man, asked me what I was looking for and then proceeded to shadow me around the store. I can be bad enough at making decisions about fabric as it is, without someone peering over my shoulder! And in truth I didn't really know what I was looking for - whatever caught my eye, but I didn't know how to tell him that other than 'I don't know', so I just told him 'cotton' for dresses.

He showed me a range of cottons and pulled out a few to show me. And when I was looking in other areas of the store he told me what the fabrics were made of and that they weren't cotton - I was beginning to feel a little daft. But then I remembered reading a post somewhere describing probably this exact gentleman and how they too were a little unnerved that he was following them around the store, and I realised this was obviously completely normal and he was just being helpful and attentive.

Handily, they measure fabric per metre in France, as they do in Australia. And I loved that this store was so old school, and tiny, that they didn't have a big cutting table with a ruler on it to measure and cut the fabric. Instead, he had what looked like a very old yard stick, but the length of one metre, which he used to measure my fabric . He hand wrote himself a receipt of the purchase which he put on one of those spikes behind the counter and went to serve the next customer and I was so surprised to hear him speak fluent Japanese when he recognised that was where she came from!

Paris Fabric, originally uploaded by mooimadeit.

This fabric I picked up from a quilting store I chanced upon in the Latin Quarter called:

Le Rouvray
3, Rue de la Bucherie
75005 PARIS
www.lerouvray.com

They had some exquisite quilts there, I would have loved to have purchased one if there was an easy way to cart an entire quilt with one across Europe! The fabric was in a bargain bin and marked down to 2 Euros per metre or something crazy like that.

In addition to a great range of quilting fabrics they also have homewares - cushions, quilts, birds cages, pillows and a whole assortment of quilting tools as well. I'm not a quilter but loved it all the same, I'm sure a quilting fanatic would have gone nuts there! And handily for me they speak fluent English there, in fact sounded like they were American.

They were asking me what I was going to make it into and suggested perhaps a bathrobe. Um... I was thinking something more along the lines of a cute little summer dress? Those birds are so cute!

**VINTAGE SHOPPING IN PARIS**

Just wanted to add I have since found this fantastic post on Sweet Sassafras about vintage shopping in Paris. Storing it here for my next Europe trip! Look here.

Fabric shopping in Paris (Pt I)

Montmartre, originally uploaded by Gina Biber.

FABRIC SHOPPING IN PARIS (PART I)
- a cheat sheet of links

We spent a gloriously exhausting week in Paris! I almost walked my feet OFF. Well, that's my excuse for buying six pairs of shoes whilst in Europe. But seriously, our day walking around Versailles really almost killed me.

Somehow, in the midst of running from one end of the city to the other, doing our best to catch some of the sights I have spent my entire life dreaming of seeing in person whilst still taking the time to glimpse some of the 'real Paris', we managed to squeeze in just a tiny bit of fabric shopping. Especially considering what a time vacuum fabric shopping can be!

Nevertheless, I think this collated list of links could prove invaluable for future crafty visitors to the city, and my own next visit:

USEFUL 'FABRIC SHOPPING IN PARIS' LINKS

('tissus' is French for fabric)

• Fuzzy Galore: full page guide to "Paris textile resources and fabric stores"
  


• Sew Stylish: 2007 blog post on "Fabric shopping in Paris"


• Virtual Tourist: Mariev's Paris Shopping Tips including a brief description and links for the three biggest fabric stores in Paris including this store:


• Tissus Reine: which I saw an ad at the metro for boasting the largest range of fabric in Paris


• Lazy Gal Quilting: 2007 blog post on Fabric Stores in Montmartre


• Craftster: a few suggestions on this thread


• Textile Arts: an article on Textile Trails in Paris


• Flickr: all sorts of drool worth images appear when you search 'Paris fabric' on Flickr (like this below!) and some include details of where they were purchased from

In Three Versions, originally uploaded by catslye.

Hope this list proves to be useful! My other tip is to write down addresses on paper BEFORE you leave for your trip, because no matter how much access you think you're going to have to the net while you're away, or if like me you even bring your laptop with you, you're just not going to spend nor WANT to spend that much time on your computer once you're away.

Now I'm gonna be a big ole tease and make you wait til tomorrow to see the fabric I bought from Paris. Trying to spread this out over 7 days here people!

Almost famous

Kindernähmaschinen - Toy Sewing Machines, originally uploaded by *Püppilottchen*.

This piece about Thread Den ran in Saturday's edition of The Age in Melbourne over the weekend -- lookie, I make a guest appearance! I find it pretty amusing to actually be QUOTED in an article for a change, seeing I'm a publicist and usually the one setting up interviews. Forgot to plug my blog though damn it! Guess that's why I'm a music publicist and not a self-publicist.

Yikes, with that and the Burda Style feature member piece possibly running this week, I might be mistaken as one of those incredibly prolific, crafty blogger types like Nikkishell and Pip of Meet Me At Mikes who I always seem to be reading about. And after seeing how much my fave creative ladies Oonaballoona and The Incurable Homebody have been up to while I've been on holiday, I'm inspired to get off my butt and make up for 3 weeks of no postings.

So I hereby proclaim this week A WEEK OF CRAFTY POSTS! It starts tomorrow and I'm going to share with you the details of where I went fabric shopping in Paris and Lisbon, what I bought, my work in progress, bits and pieces I got overseas with my 'project sewing room overhaul' in mind. Fingers crossed I have enough to fill an entire week.

And then I might just follow that up with a WEEK OF GARDENING POSTS. Saw so many beautiful gardens overseas, especially the impressive dahlia collection at the Madrid Botanical Gardens.

In the meantime, for those of you keen to check out some of the photos from my European vacation here are some links because I'm not going to bore the entire readership and put them all up here :) I think my photos of Paris and Lisbon are my favourites.

UK: London, Glastonbury Festival, Richmond

France, Paris: Paris Je T'Aime, Paris Bike Tour, Versailles

Portugal: Lisbon

STAY TUNED FOR: Portugal: Sintra, Spain: Madrid, Korea: Seoul

Back on the green

A La Place De Vosges, originally uploaded by mooimadeit.

Why, hello there! I'm back. We had the most fantastic time. My dream is to save up some money and live in Lisbon for 3 months over a summer. What a place.

I am happy to report that I I took loads of photos for the blog which I will be putting up in coming weeks, once I manage to edit them all, yikes.

Went fabric shopping in Paris and Lisbon. I dearly wish I had more time so I could have done some in Madrid, and especially in Seoul but I just ran out of time. Not to mention, the heat in Spain and Korea (+ humidity!) really took it out of my and my pace was about halved.

I couldn't really find much info on the net or blogs about fabric shopping in Lisbon, and was further confused when I got there because the word 'Fabrico' seems to mean store or something because it was on so many shop fronts... that were clearly not selling fabric! But I did find some real gems in the end and they were so ridiculously cheap. As in - one place actually charged PER KILO for some sale fabrics. I was selective though, seeing we were already busting the seams of our luggage.

Oh and all the wonderful gardens we saw overseas as well! It's just so green over there! So strange to be in countries that have no idea what being in a drought and having water restrictions are like. I think in England, it'd be incredible if you managed to NOT grow something. I was so jealous. They have gardens everywhere - hanging baskets EVERYWHERE, literally hanging off the lamp posts! There were even colourful raised beds in drab of railway stations. And loved travelling on the overground train and peering into everyone's backyards and seeing so many little veggie patches. Jealous, jealous, jealous!

In other news, the day I arrived back I got an email from Burda Style saying they want to make me Feature Member on their website next week! Yippee!!! How exciting. I have a sudden urge to making a bunch of items hastily to upload on their site to make it look like I've done more sewing but alas I have no time. Though perhaps I could manage something seeing I still keep waking up at 4.30am, but I'm off to Sydney tonight so that's not going to happen. I'll at the very least show you the wonderful fabrics I purchased when I return though.

In the meantime, the photo of me above was taken in a bit of a 'secret garden' at La Place De Vosges - the oldest square in Paris, which we discovered during our bike tour of Paris. See what I mean? Greenery EVERYWHERE.

London Days

P6242408-400, originally uploaded by mooimadeit.

Hi everybody! Today is our last day in London. We have had a blast -- I didn't expect to enjoy it here as much as we have. The weather has been just GORGEOUS - incredible huh. Sunny days in London, eh?

Doing a last bit of shopping today and then heading to Richmond to have cheese and watch deer and go rowing.

Tomorrow Paris. We did Glastonbury and had a fantastic time - so much fun. So much walking!

So much to tell and so little time. Have put up stacks of photos on Flickr - if you click on this photo it should take you to the others hopefully. No captions yet though so let the pictures do the talking and I will explain later!

xox