Exercises in supporting or depressing the sewing mojo - trouser jeans

Thank you for your kind comments about my blogging absence. Thank you also for the kind words about my mojo, but unfortunately, it seems a fragile and feeble thing at the moment, rather than returning in good shape as would be preferable.
Here are some mojo killing depressing jeans that I finished prior to the trip.

I am not a jeans devotee ,but have to admit that they are a useful item of clothing for someone who tends to dress in order not to stand out in any way, and only wants to take carry on baggage.

I do not really want to talk about these jeans, they were dull and un-co-operative to sew due to the stiffness of the fabric combined with the vagaries of my figure, which tends more the shape admired in the 1880's than one that looks its best in jeans. The pattern is my adapted TNT trouser pattern from Burda 04-2009. I embroidered one leg, then got sick of it.

They look better than RTW jeans.

I am sewing a skirt next

Lets move on to mojo stimulating activity.
Here is my $22 worth of things from Hunter Valley junk shops. (My husband loves junk shops)

The singer binding foot and pattern tracing wheel are from Morpeth, where I did not buy an incomplete Singer buttonholer for $30, but the foot was only $1 - Did they know what it was? I am planning a bit of electrolysis this weekend to see if I can make these tools a little more useful.

The buttons and lace were from a lovely Old Wares shop in Branxton. This was well worth the visit, with a lot of vintage clothes, vintage fabric lengths, buttons and trims. The prices were what you would expect for someone trying to make a living from selling these things, except for the cotton lace in very good condition for 50c per metre which the lady said was a mistake, but sold to me for that price anyway. I hope she made a profit on my husband's purchases!

I have been on a fabric diet since mid January, which I could possibly blame for mojo depression, but had always planned to finish the diet during my trip to Sydney, as my daughter and I planned an exciting expedition to buy fabric for her self-designed high school graduation formal dress.
This dress is a very big deal to my daughter, particularly as the Yr 12 graduation dinners are highly interesting events to our country town, with all the attendees photographed red carpet style and all the photographs being published in a special issue of the local paper.
After being unable to find a suitable-to-my-daughter shade of green silk fabric in any of 9 internet shops I thought this would be a loooong day.
My plan was to start at Alexandria, then move on to the fabric district in Surrey Hills where there are 3 shops from which to choose - Greenfields, The Fabric Store and Tessuti.
This was my first visit to The Remnant Warehouse, both Gail and Sharon recommended it to me, and I am very grateful, as it is a terrific shop.

I found it easy to access via public transport, as it is only a few blocks from the train station.
(Train station is Green Square, not Alexandria,just to be confusing)
Fortunately for me, the shop is located right next door to an enormous tool shop, for the entertainment of accomanying husbands, no doubt. We thought this person was safely off kayaking for the day with his brother, but this fell through at the last minute. Much as I enjoy my husband's company, he is not my favourite companion for fabric shopping.
The Remnant Warehouse has two shops, one for dancewear, costumes and swimwear, and one for dress and quilting fabrics.

Here is my score from the swimwear shop, which I accidently entered first - 2 nylon/lycra pre cut 1 metre lengths at $9.95 per m, and the one my daughter fell in love with cut from a roll at $19.95 per metre. See all the lovely doo-dads useful clasps and things-I-might-want-one-day. It was probably just as well that I was on a strict time limit in this shop, there were some very interesting remnant and trim boxes.

Next door, there was a good display of dress fabrics, about half of the shop was quilting fabrics. There were silks in a reasonable range of weaves, weights and colours, scattered amongst other fabrics, but clearly labelled. Amazingly, my daughter found the exact colour she was after, in a medium heavy duchess silk.

I thought it was a real bargain at $16.95 per metre - so I bought myself some in red as well. It took us about 20 minutes.
The service was excellent and well informed - also beyond the call of duty. I had a few 3kg flat rate post bags with me, not being keen to carry fabric about all day, (and being quite keen to buy too much fabric to fit in my carry on), and packed one of these at the fabric counter. The shop is in an industrial area and I had not seen any post boxes, but before I could even ask where the closest one was, the saleslady offered to take my parcel to the business post centre, which not only saved me lugging it about, but had my parcel delivered interstate and rurally in only 2 days for no extra cost (normally $7 extra for this speed).
The only problem with this wild success was that I had no change of convincing anyone to visit the Surrey Hills shops with me ;(.
We walked across the Sydney Harbour Bridge instead.