Vegas Loot

I took a little Uber adventure to Heddy's Fabrics while in Las Vegas.  I know I've mentioned before that I am not a Las Vegas person and wasn't horribly impressed the last time we went.  I've also concluded that Vegas is more expensive than London, and that is really saying something.  If I'm going to spend that kind of money in a city, I at least want to experience some culture.  Now that I've said that, I'm done being a total Vegas snob.

Back to Heddy's...  We had a free afternoon and Dave was going to play cards for a few hours.  I can't stand casinos and I'd already been to the yarn shop so I wanted to investigate the fabric in town. 

Heddy's has been privately owned for over 50 years and specializes in occasion fabrics.  This was not a Joann's fabric store and all these gorgeous fabrics were way out of my league.  I can sew but I am in no way a seamstress.  My mother would have appreciated it here.  I'm told many of the entertainers and drag queens come here for their costume materials.

I just loved this rack of elegant remnants.  I see pieces like this as total inspiration or something to throw in the dress-up box and watch kids be creative with it.  This reminds me of some blogs I happily discovered when I started working on my pineapple bag.  These gals SEW and they talk often of trading and giving remnants and full cuts to each other for various projects.  When you're sewing accurate Dickensian ballgowns, there is a lot of fabric involved and if you can do it economically, all the better.  I've always been a big believer in stash and stash karma and when you see something that catches your eye for a great price, BUY IT.  It may take 10 years but the perfect project and true purpose will eventually come to you in a dream.  That being said, I didn't spring for any remnants.

These are just a sample of the gorgeous specialty fabrics.

Here are more.  It took everything in me to not touch the fabrics.

Glorious bridal fabrics, trims and laces.  I had to bite my fist.

I was especially thrilled with the selection of trims on bolts.  You can never have too many trims and braids in your stash.

I loved the colors of all the sequined trims.  These were a little too flashy for me but I enjoyed the eye candy.

A close up of bridal laces.

Rhinestone trims.

Rhinestone appliques.  Seeing raw materials like these just sets your mind racing.  Imagine working with these and turning them into stunning gowns and costumes.  I wish they had a project page or photos of finished garments in the store.

I bought some African wax fabric--one of the few cotton bolts in the store.  The clerk also pulled that tacky bolt of Vegas print out of the back so of course I had to get a yard.  I picked out some trims, a wax thread cake and happened to find a bowling patch in the clearance bin!  I had a nice visit with the clerks before taking my Uber back to the hotel.

We also stopped at Sin City Knits on our first day.  Once again I felt guilty making Dave wait on me and I forgot to take pictures.  As of posting this, their website is being updated.  There is a gentleman who is a regular there and I mean absolutely no offense when I say he looks like Fred Willard.  He was featured in their old website photos and we saw and visited with him on both trips when we visited this shop!  Everyone we've met there has been friendly and lovely.  We'd come from snowy weather and Nevadans can visit about the weather and everything else and made us feel very welcome!  If I ever have to go back to Vegas, I will be stopping in again.

I bought some Tink and Sin City Yarn, both of which are produced and dyed in Las Vegas.  They are lovely slightly variegated gray/blue fingering skeins.  In the picture it looks like one is Ocean Gray and the other is Military Gray but I promise they are quite different from one another.  I also got some fingering Wool Addicts in a white/cream for a baby sweater I have in mind.  Two Knitter's Pride cable needles came home with me too! 

My sainted mother stayed at our house while we were gone and babysat Marek and Lopi.  We made  up our bed for her so she was across the hall from Marek but her biggest concern was that our dog sleeps in bed with us.  I'm still not quite sure what she was afraid of, but she was convinced our dog would injure her knee somehow or another and did not want Lopi in bed with her.  We have a king size bed so there is plenty of room for the two of them but she was adamant.  I told her Lopi likes to lay on the couch but warned her that even if she went to bed alone, she'd probably wake up with a dog.  This was her solution:  She put the Pack and Play in the hallway and opened the baby gate all the way to close any gaps.  This was her Berlin Wall and poor Lopi had to sleep all night out on the couch alone.  Poor dog. 

My brother engineered the install of that baby gate at the top of the stairs to make it secure.  I'm always happy when he comes to spend a Navy weekend with us.  I feed him really well and he does odd jobs for me around the house!

This was our first overnight trip away from Marek and I never knew it would be so hard.  My mother is the most trustworthy and capable person on earth, but I couldn't help but worry.  My sister in law and nieces also came for the weekend to keep her company and help and yet still I worried.    The trip home was agonizing and I counted every minute.  It was late when we got home but looking in on him sleeping in his crib was the best feeling in the world.

I joked that I'd like to have him potty trained by the time I came home.  When I was a toddler my Mom went on a trip to Norway and my grandma, her mom, stayed with us kids.  Mom made the same potty training joke except she came home and Grandma had in fact potty trained me!  In this case, Grandma got him to use his sippy cup all by himself.  Such a big boy!