End of an era and some other bits of randomness

I begin this post with a bit of lovely.

I was struck by this beautiful spot of light on my kitchen floor when I realized that the source of the light was 

Sun shining through this bottle half filled with water. This bottle began life as a whiskey bottle. It now holds water to fill my iron. For the past few decades I have used the little plastic pitcher than came with an iron that has long since bit the dust. it was a nice shape for filling the iron but had an unpleasant tendency to tip over. The whiskey bottle is much more attractive than the plastic pitcher and is much too bottom heavy to tip. I think that the incidents of my cursing during ironing has been reduced to just a fraction of what it was before.

And now, the end of an era. One of the first fabric stores I ever shopped in in New York was Paron. They used to have more than one store. I used to shop at their store on 57th street when there used to be several fabric stores just east of Carnegie Hall. I was a big devotee of their half price store, which then morfed into their half price nook.

I bought most of my copies of Burda at Paron. I followed them when the rents became too high on 40th Street and they moved to 39th Street. I went today for my last visit and shop..

The store was crowded. There were small design houses buying up stock for next season's clothing. There were women who sew buying special fabrics that otherwise they might not splurge on.

I saw Kini from Project Runway fame, he looked, but did not purchase. No, I am a New Yorker and did not speak to him.

When I paid for my last purchase I took a photo of the woman who has been selling me fabric for the past 26 years.

Behind her you can see thecertificates for trees planted in Israel by the owners and a Yahrzeit reminder from the same funeral home in Queens that buried my mother in law. 

This is what I bought 

From top to bottom, a light weight striped stretch denim. it's for the New England girl in me.

Then this blue and grey striped jersey. The stripe is really subtle. This will be a season-less dress, the sort of dress you wear to death.

This navy blue lace came in several different colors, a melon, a magenta and a red. The other colors looked a little cheap The navy blue is pretty elegant looking.This will probably be a fancy dress for me.

I have already made two muslins of the kittle . I plan to make the final muslin out of this beautiful shirting. Actually I plan to turn this version of the kittle into a dress for me once I get the fit all tweaked.

Finally I got this soft rayon knit  that will become either a nightgown or a sundress, or perhaps both if I cut cleverly.

Part of my sewing life is now over.