Philadelphia’s Fabric Row in the 1930s

The Philadelphia Sewing Collective offers a tour of Fabric Row that is really worth taking. Christine Phillips, a local fashion designer, was our guide.

The tour helped me to better understand which fabrics can be used for different types of projects. In addition, it made stores that cater to professional designers a lot less intimidating. I really never felt comfortable going into those places before.

We were also provided with a card, good for one year, worth 10% off purchases at all of the major fabric and notions stores on 4th Street. Nice!

A tour of the Garment District in Manhattan is being planned for the Fall.

It takes a village to teach me how to sew. Not only am I taking classes offered by the Philadelphia Sewing Collective, but I’m also taking classes at Spool. Spool has a beautiful selection of popular quilting fabrics (e.g., designs by Amy Butler and Michael Miller), and their classes are very laid back. Class size is limited to 6, so you receive lots of individual attention.

I wanted to learn how to install a zipper, so I took Spool’s ‘Zippered Pouch’ class on May 3rd. The class was 3 hours, and was taught by Laura Singewald, one of the co-owners of Spool.

Here is the finished product:

Each person chose their own fabric, thread, and zipper.

We were able to choose matching or contrasting fabric for the inside.

No, I was not drunk when I was doing the topstitching.

In one place, the fabric is too close to the zipper, so the zipper kind of sticks. But, for my first attempt at installing a zipper, I was happy that it turned out as well as it did.