First we went to Fog City News, a newsstand that has received good reviews on-line as having international magazines (and chocolate) but is only open M-F during the day and the first Saturday of every month. I hoped to find some international sewing magazines like Patrones, Knipmode, or Diana Moden. But alas, they only carry Burda. We walked about 5 blocks west to Harold's International Newsstand but found that it's no longer called Harold's and although they carried some international magazines in their tiny store, none were sewing-related. I guess I'll just have to go to Europe!
Since we'd already paid for parking in downtown, we walked a bit more and then soaked up the sun and watched tourists for a while in Union Square. Of course Britex was just a block or so away and no trip to SF is complete without a stop into Britex. My husband actually encouraged me since we were already there and paid for parking. I took a quick browse and feel of the fabrics on my way to the 4th floor where the remnants hide. So many pretty ones. So many. I purchased a 2-yard remnant cut of a polyester (blend?) woven to sew up a light-weight top.
Back to the car, and with only 2 minutes to spare before paying for another 1/2 hour, we next headed over to the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park for the primary reason we made the trip: the Vivienne Westwood exhibition. I hadn't heard of her before reading the previews of the exhibit on the de Young website but I made a note to see it before the exhibit leaves on June 10. When we visited the V&A in London in December, I saw and photographed one of Vivienne Westwood's dresses. That one is tame compared to the vast collection that's on tour. I must say that her work is quite interesting and definitely creative. She is considered to have started the punk rock look and is very free-thinking when it comes to clothing. I'm a very conservative dresser and I don't have the artistic eye of a designer, but looking at her work did inspire me to consider clothing in a different way. It's an exhibit worth seeing, but unfortunately SF is the only US stop and I think it may be the last.
After the museum we drove to Ocean Beach and just watched the waves and the people for a while. It was quite a windy day and I twisted my ankle a little earlier while walking in Golden Gate Park (I'm such a klutz, but thankfully the ankle is fine now), so we sat in the car. But it was still nice and relaxing.
We stopped in the Haight for dinner and ate at the Magnolia Pub. Great beer but only so-so food. The service wasn't great - the waitress forgot to put our food order in but in the end they did comp our beer without us even asking. However, when our food was finally served there was no notice of my empty beer glass and again no notice when asked how our food was. Not that I wanted another beer but good grief, they're a brew pub. Aren't they interested in selling beer?
I made pretty good progress knitting Bonita on the ride up to the city. I'm in the home stretch now, just decreasing for the arm and neck on the last side of the back (the front is finished). However, this morning I seem to have made a large error and will have to rip back to where I picked up to work this last side. Oh well. It's not an error that can't be fixed.
My husband has been working hard in the garden to supply drip watering to the veggies, which are doing well, despite the heat we've had. It's been in the 90's the last few days. What happened to spring? We have one little green tomato already, a few pea pods have formed, and the peppers are ready to flower. We've had one salad so far from the lettuce and will enjoy another one tonight. The peach trees are putting out far too much fruit and I've thinned quite a bit, filling at least 1/3 of a 5 gallon plastic pail just on Sunday. It is painful to pull off the fuzzy little peaches but if we don't, there would be a lot of undersized fruit and at worst, the branches would break and we'd have no fruit and a damaged tree.
Hancock Fabrics had another sale on Simplicity patterns this weekend so I made a pit stop while I was out running errands. I picked up these:
3887
4589 (I know, it looks just like 3887, but it's not exactly the same and they were only $2)
4176
3786
3745 - I gave in to the lure of the "Duro Dress". Well, not quite, this one has a lapped front and I do like the other dresses also.
Apparently we're on the same wavelength. I just bought 3786 the other day and I looked very hard at the first two. Just found your blog -- you commented somewhere about your embroidery machine (can't remember where.) It's been fun reading about all your sewing projects!
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