Well it’s been quite the month for me, in between shoe
making and deciding that my husband needed a new suit for our annual Christmas party
, I was contracted to do a rather large job.
Now generally I hate sewing for others, I really exemplify the selfish
sewing motto, but when its friends or family I can’t say no. In this regard I absolutely couldn’t say no,
because not only is my client my day jobs daughter but included with the job
was a trip to NYC to source fabrics. The
contact was for a 16 piece wardrobe based on the outfits of Ariana Grande,
which frankly is easy because that girl loves her some circle skirts. The only thing was that from the time that I
got home to my first deliverable date was only 15 days. So in the last 15 days I have managed to sew
2 dresses, 4 skirts, a bustier, 2 crop tops a pair of jean shorts. I do have a second deliverable date on August
10 in which I have to complete 3 more dresses, a tutu, a peplum top and another
bustier. I am doing the final pressing
and hand sewing details tonight and then I am going to deliver them all
tomorrow evening and then relax for a few days.
But let me gush about New York, all I can say is that I want
to move there. The city is so vibrant
and full of artistic outlets that it’s hard for me to not want to move there
right now. Total time including the
flights to NYC and home was 36 hours and we didn’t end up sleeping much but we experienced
a lot. In two days we went to Times
Square, The Rockefeller Centre, 5th Ave, Hell’s Kitchen, Soho and
Central Park. We ate at Guys Kitchen,
Balthzars, Boqueria, The Plaza and tried Carnegies Deli right by our
hotel. Speaking of our hotel, we stayed
at The London, which is quite the ritzy place for me, but also a little strange
because there were celebrities staying there (Anna Paquin and some Vine guys)
while we were there and thus paparazzi were staked outside the entrance. We
went to Mood, and holy cow I seriously almost fan girled when I got there, it
was like a dream getting to be there and soaking in the atmosphere. I even met the owner, who was a lovely man
and obliged me a picture. One of my
travelling companions played with Swatch the dog as we shopped and was given a
welcoming cuddle. We got there a little
late and only had two hours to shop so I spent all of my time scouring for the
right color of pink for the dresses and didn’t really get to shop for myself or
even to get to the second floor of Mood.
We were supposed to go back the second day but time just got away from
us and then Manhattan started getting flooding warnings and we were worried we
would miss our flight so it was missed.
I did get a few small cuts of some cotton and a piece of silk jersey but
I think I could have dropped serious money there. I didn’t even get to go see Metro textiles or
B&J trimmings even though we walked right by them. I will also say my pre-conceptions about New
York were completely wrong, well except for the cabs. When you see NYC in shows or movies, you
think its dirty and that people are rude but that’s not the case, everywhere we
went I found it clean, granted that may be because of the area where we were,
but we did a couple of burrows but never did I feel like it was grungy. As for the people, they were kind, helpful
and sometimes brutally honest about people trying to scam tourists but honestly
out all of the places that I have been I found NYC to be the best bunch of folks
(I even went to Honolulu in June and found New Yorkers more kind). But the cabs are scary, especially when you
come from a small city, we were in the Holland Tunnel and I was terrified. Not only was lane control something that
almost every cabbie didn’t abide by, but speeding, cutting one another off mid
intersection, rushing pedestrians and liberal use of the horn seemed more the
rule than the exception. With my day job
being a paralegal for a car accident lawyer all I could think about was my day
job and praying that something bad didn’t happen. That being said though, the cabbies were very
nice, the cabs were clean and it was easy to hail a cab anywhere. I did have a secret fantasy of running into
Carolyn from Diary of a Sewing Fanatic or Peter from Male Pattern Boldness, but
I thought they would think I am a stalker if I ran up to them without ever
having introduced myself prior, but alas the timing wasn’t right, I guess the
next day was the day they were both at Mood separately but oddly during the
time that we would have been there if we had gone a day later. Getting home was a little dodgy because there
was flood warnings going on throughout the city and we were flying out of
Newark so it took about 2 hours to get to the airport but once there it was
quick, although our flight ended up getting delayed by about an hour and damn
near canceled. Honestly we shouldn’t have
left that night, the turbulence was really rough but we made it home in one
piece. But when I got home for some
reason I got selected for secondary search which pissed me off. I always declare everything, even if I am
over and I am willing to pay duty. I
always keep my receipts for my purchases in an envelope ready to give any
officer on a moment’s notice and in the end I was only $80 outside the
exception but I guess I looked like a liar to the original agent. When I got to secondary search the lady looked
at my receipts and my luggage and said that I was a very efficient packer and
that my receipts looked good and sent me on my way. If the first officer had just looked at my
receipts he would have seen that the numbers matched exactly what I was
declaring and that I had my credit card out to pay, but oh well.
I also mentioned that I went to Hawaii in June, all I can
say about that is while it is beautiful and the weather was great, it was
really really expensive. If I hadn’t had
a bonus from work I don’t know that my husband and I could have done much in
the way of tourism. We did a ton of
walking, a lot of eating and generally just relaxing. I
really needed this trip after my trials and tribulations of my miscarriage and
it helped my husband and me to finish dealing with the emotional aspect of this
and to really reconnect. We spent a lot of
time just walking hand in hand, sitting on the beach and soaking each other in. The flights home sucked bad, I can honestly
say that red eye flights are just the worst idea ever. We left at 10PM on Friday night and got home
11AM on Saturday, by the end of it I felt like I was floating because of utter exhaustion. I was also not that impressed with West Jet because
they just crammed us on that plane and it was so uncomfortable to try to sleep.
But after all my trips I am back home and have been sewing
like a mad beast for the last 15 days and I am burnt absolutely out. I have about another 9 days of work and then
I will post pictures of all the outfits but I think I need another
vacation. If my contract offered to send me anywhere
with her airmiles I think I would take that instead of a paycheck. I honestly just want to go back to NYC.
With love,
Mame 
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