Yesterday we got out of the house and went downtown to Michael Levine's to get some fabric and sewing supplies. They have so many options of everything it was pretty overwhelming at first. 

I'm working on making a tester bag that will ultimately be a bag for my Mom. She wants a custom bag that she can use in her teacher's cart at work. She's looked and looked for something that has the right dimensions and can hold her laptop, but hasn't found anything she likes. She called me a couple of weeks ago and told me what she wanted and I happily agreed to attempt to make a tester and send it to her to try it out. I've never made a  structured bag, so this is different than anything I've sewn but I love a good crafting challenge. After finding various tutorials for similar bags online, I drafted out my own pattern pieces and got to work on the tester. I'm almost done with it, but didn't originally purchase enough interfacing and although I thought I wouldn't need it for the tester I decided I want to make sure it's the right stiffness, so went downtown to buy more. While I was there I went ahead and bought the fabric for my mom's bag. Originally we had talked about doing the outer fabric with corduroy, but I wasn't crazy about any of the corduroy they had. They had some great corduroy prints, but all of them looked too young or casual. So, we went ahead and got this really beautiful gray suiting fabric, with a purple liner and gray and white paisley for the piping. (I don't know why but in the lighting of this picture the purple looks more like a wine color, it's definitely more eggplant than wine though in real life....hmm)

I'm SO excited to see how it'll turn out. I only have a few more steps for the tester, so I'll be sure to post pictures when I'm finished with that one.

Michael Levine's is inspiring though!! Tom and I were dreaming of all sorts of things we could buy fabric for and make. He kept picking out fabrics that he liked, suggesting things he wanted me to make, like new pillows to throw on our sofas. We also saw Rami Kashou from season 4 of Project Runway and Project Runway All-Stars, which is airing now! 

Like Tom said, if Rami shops here, then this is the place to be!  :)

After shopping we headed over to Philipe's to get some french dip sandwiches for lunch! I was surprised with how busy they were since we got there around 2:30. But, Tom waited in line and I found a table to sit down with Jack and feed him. As always the sandwiches were delicious and Tom also got potato salad, pickles and a brownie for us to share. Overall a great outing downtown!