Steel City Sewing

I visited one of my favourite parts of Hamilton with a friend today - Ottawa Street, the former garment district, now the decor district of Hamilton. It's in the East End and is slowly, slowly building itself up. It still has enough of the "olde Hamilton charm"to amuse me, while also home to a marvelous Italian bistro, an outdoor farmer's market in the summer and enough antique shops to provide shelter (and inspiration!) during southern Ontario thunderstorms.

Visiting fabric stores is like being in a candy store of colour and ideas. I should not go there as often as I do, and that has only been twice this summer (but both have been since the wedding and have me itching to cut out patterns and get to work on new projects).

I've been sewing since I was small. I remember going along with my mother to Fanny's Fabrics in Calgary and spending most of the summer during my years in junior high school in the Fabricville in Charlottetown (when it was still in the basement of the Confederation Court Mall). I got out of sewing when I hit university, mostly because of the time factor and once I moved up to Hamilton I no longer had access to a machine. Last summer, post-France, with too much time on my hands and a few pairs of pants that needed hemming, I wandered over to my grand-uncle's house to see if he had an extra machine kicking around. And he did. Two in fact. An old one of my grand-aunt's that wasn't working, and one that he had received from a pair of widowed sisters (both now deceased) who lived down the street and had given it to him for safekeeping when he helped them move from their house into smaller care. After I spent an afternoon hemming pants and working on a table runner at their house, he suggested I take it home. And he hasn't mentioned it since.

One of my favourite parts of visiting the fabric stores as a child was seeing all of the cotton prints that are used for quilting. The colours and designs are beautiful, but were never quite practical for use in winter curtains or dress pants. I have, however, found the perfect way to use them: in aprons. I went a little wild towards the end of last summer and bought more 1 metre lengths than I needed so now I'm looking for other, simple projects to do with cotton prints, although it always seems that I need something extra for each new project - interfacing, ric rac, zippers or bias tape - so it seems as if I have to make a trip across town to Ottawa St. everytime I start something new.

*sigh* Someday I hope to have enough of a store of fabric and notions that I can save myself the bus fare (or the looong bike ride across the city), but a fabric-buying trip to Ottawa St always gives me new ideas and inspiration (and tips! I learned how to insert piping into throw pillow covers today) so maybe it's just the cost of the hobby.