I was planning to write more about my all-time favorite vintage craft book today (which fellow devotee Lynn guessed correctly from the half-page I posted, by the way!) but then I unexpectedly went fabric shopping and wanted to freak out about that a little bit instead.

I’m in Portland (yay!) and staying in Northwest, which is unusual for me as a ten-year east-side-of-the-river type… but the nice bonus is that I can walk to Powell’s, the Acorn, Half and Half, and a bunch of cool downtown stuff in no time at all. So today I headed over to the “Fiber Arts District” and visited three of the shops for a little craft browsing: Fabric in the City, the Button Emporium, and Josephine’s. If you haven’t heard about it, the District is a collective of six craft stores, on and around SW 11th Ave.: Fabric in the City, Button Emporium and Ribbonry, Josephine’s, Knit Purl, Let It Bead, and The Playful Needle. They printed a handy little flyer with all the stores’ info and hours listed so you can wander from one to the next, which is so cool.

I bought Sew U recently, after hanging out with Melissa and seeing the super lovely pieces she made herself with the book patterns, and I wanted to pick out some good fabric for the a-line skirt*. And of course I can never pass on cute prints…

Here’s my haul: five 1/4-yard bits for quilting from Fabric in the City (plus some loden green wool felt I didn’t photograph because it clashed with the corduroy, badly), and olive green thread and stretch cord** for the Sew U skirt from Josephine’s. Pictured for cuteness is my cupcake pincushion by Love Forever! I’m so excited to make that skirt, it’s perfect corduroy a-line skirt weather in my opinion (when is it not?) and I am going to sew it and my log-cabin pillow back this weekend. Hooray!

As a lovely only-in-Portland bonus, I ran into Rebecca at Josephine’s, and got to hang out with her for a few minutes (happily sporting my Queen Bee bag and wallet, as always!). Did you know that she’s about to introduce a bunch of new spring designs? I can’t wait to see them — love Queen Bee.

Also, I spotted a R2D2 mailbox at Broadway and Salmon! So awesome.

(update: thanks to Natalie at CRAFT, I just saw that Bonnie of Star Wars Kids Crafts has posted a 3D mini R2D2 mailbox project — wow.)

*and by the way, thanks a million for the heads up on how much fabric to get, Melissa! I like Sew U so far but why on earth doesn’t she even give a hint about how much yardage you need for anything?! It’s like buying the pattern without the envelope. For anyone else similarly confused, 1.5 yards appears to be the magic amount for the skirt. I bought 1.75 just to be sure though.

**the funny thing is that I totally misremembered that Melissa also used olive green fabric, I thought her skirt was brown for some reason, so I have now copied her stylishness completely! oops. I swear I’ll pick something totally different for the shirt when I tackle that…