New fabric

I spent Christmas with family who live west of Portland OR. People who sew and live close to Portland are lucky, they have wonderful fabric stores. I stopped at The Mill End Fabric Store and a Pendleton Outlet (conveniently close to each other) on my way to the airport on Wednesday. I happily wandered around Mill End while deciding what fabrics to buy. Available suitcase space was an issue since I bought 2 cones of bamboo at Woodland Woolworks on the 22nd. A quick stop at the Pendleton outlet and I had more fabric than would fit in my checked luggage. 2 pieces of fabric became my 'personal item' to accompany the carry-on containing the laptop. All the fabrics have been pre-washed and are ready to sew.


From left to right: red and navy wool plaid from Pendleton; white rayon shirting; magenta rayon gaberdine; black and white rayon challis; royal blue ambiance lining and wool gaberdine; and white, purple, black and red wool plaid.


Both wool plaids have a wonderful jacquard pattern. This picture is a close up of the red and navy plaid. The red is darker and almost a blue red - the picture does show the weave structure well. The other plaid has the weave structure.


I really like the stars in the white rayon. The fabric is all white, the slight grey tint to the stars is a side effect of adjusting the picture to show the pattern. I haven't decided if I will dye this fabric or leave it white.

Both the wool plaids will become shawls. The Pendleton outlet had a wonderful shawl made from a soft wool with a commercial fringe sewn around the edges. I have black fringe for the white/purple fabric.

The royal blue will become a dress with a seperate lining. The seperate lining and dress shields make it so I can wash the lining more than the dress. This saves on ironing which is means I will wear the dress more.

The black and white rayon challis will be overdyed multiple colors. Only the white areas will show the dye. This fabric doesn't yet know what it wants to be when it grows up. The magenta rayon will likely be a 2 piece dress.

The really amazing part of my visit to the Mill End store is the purple wool gaberdine and microfiber dress silky I didn't buy.