Sewing Expo and Other Updates

It has not been productive over here this week. One of my girls had a serious case of the stomach flu this week, therefore not much sewing has taken place.

However, I did spend yesterday at the Original Sewing and Quilt Expo in Minneapolis. My mom and I went together. In previous years, this has been at the Minneapolis Convention Center and has been really fun. But this year it was in a hotel and much smaller than before. I must say, we were both very disappointed.

We went through all the vendors in less than an hour and I really didn’t see a whole lot that thrilled me. I did pick up one neat tool though. This bias ruler and binding tool. The woman at this booth had a few great examples as she demonstrated it, so it came home with me. It will likely come in handy when my latest pattern purchase arrives in the mail – I FINALLY found the Oliver + S Sunday Brunch pattern in size 4-8 - so I’m anxious to try it myself then.

There is also a helpful YouTube video on it here.

There was a booth with lots of trims. ribbons, elastics and buttons, so I picked up a handful of buttons for my girls along with a piece of wide cotton elastic.

Since we left the Expo disappointed, we went to JoAnn’s and I picked up a few patterns for $1 each (except that Burda, that was a bit more)

some cute printed sweatshirt fleece that was in the Red Tag section with an additional 50% off

and some fabric dye, to go along with that cotton elastic from the Expo -  more on that later!

And I actually have made progress on the coats! They are even starting to look like coats. Really the only things left to do on these are construct and attach the lining and add the buttons/button holes, so these will definitely be finished this week!

My plan is to have my boy’s coat finished no later than the end of next week, but I’m still throwing ideas around in my head when it comes to the closures. I love the toggles, and I will keep those for sure, but I think I may want to add a zipper to make it easier for him to get on/off himself. Supposedly other have done this with success, but I’m not finding any photos or blog posts about it out there. Leave me a comment if you have made this coat with a zipper or know of someone who has!