Meetup Madness

The next chapter of the Tale of Last Week involved getting home from Manning Park on Friday just in time to unpack in the rain, pick the beans and squash (luckily the rain mostly quit by then), put a few things away, have a shower, get dressed in my nice clothes (black Mizono Dress, Little Black Cardi, Speedy Gonzales Shawlette, handknit Tulip Socks and my sensible red Blundstone boots) and toddled off on the Canada Line for downtown. Whew! I’m tired just typing all that…

I was headed for the 40+ Blogger Meetup to have dinner with about 25 people none of whom I had ever met in real life before. Yikes! Several of them were familiar from reading their blogs and some actually read mine so I can’t say we were all total strangers. But nearly. And guess what? It was really fun and I wasn’t at all intimidated – which absolutely amazed me! Everyone was really nice, compliments flew everywhere, many photos taken, conversations were crossing over each other and new friends were made. It went like this:

Yep, all a big blur. I think I even had a cider and ate a salad? And then the majority headed for a speakeasy (Prohibition, underneath the Hotel Georgia) for more laughing, schmoozing, imbibing and even some dancing. One single $20 glass of wine later (whatever happened to 1920’s prices?) I was falling asleep so toddled on home. Luckily we were only a block away from the Canada Line Station at that point. We won’t mention the long blocks home at the other end. Nope.

Ooh, I forgot to show you the lovely schwag that darling Melanie (Bag and a Beret) presented to each participant:

It was so helpful to have the name tags and everyone embellished themselves with the rose pins. The Girl Scout badge was a gift from dear Pat (pao of Project Minima) and I discovered through my awesome google skillz that it means “energy saver”. Yay! Very me. (If anyone else wants to attempt to identify a badge, beyond sweet Liberty of Maiwa’s helpful hints, I found mine here.)

On Saturday morning it was back into the fray as we met up at Granville Island for tours, more schmoozing and food:

Photographing the photographers! I ended up leading a little group – just Pat and Anne (the delightful Spygirl) and myself. I dragged them hither and yon, poor things! To Diana Sanderson’s Silk Weaving Studio, the Cloth Shop, both Maiwa in the Netloft and Maiwa Supply, Circle Craft and I forget what else. Then they wanted to go downtown to Dressew and Button Button rather than follow the rest of the group up Granville Street to Anthropologie and Meinhardts.

I have to admit I felt like I was dragging poor Anne and Pat along behind me! They were not used to walking as far as I am (and I had already walked the 4 km to Granville Island before we even started). Oops. Sorry, my darlings! Really! But we did have fun despite the sore feet, didn’t we? At least we got to sit down at the bus stop and in the bus downtown. After some food and drink at the Purebread bakery on Hastings they were more ready to check out the delights of Dressew. Of course I bought fabric! And they didn’t. Obviously it’s been too long since I’ve been there. Heh. Pat did buy 2 zippers though. Dressew has great zippers.

Here’s my haul:

The damselfly quilt fabric I bought at Granville Island at the Cloth Shop. There were less than 2 metres on the bolt but I bought the whole thing hoping to make another Katherine Tilton vest B5891 like my Indigo Batik Vest. I’m not quite sure what else I’m going to combine this with since there’s not enough of it to cut all the bajillion pieces. Either the green cotton left from my LaPine Dress (which incidentally got its inaugural run on this day) or the leftovers from the French Housedress or ? TBD as they say.

Next to that is some more linen/rayon/lycra in a deep chocolate brown (somewhat darker than it appears in the photo). I think I’ll make another Mizono dress only maybe with sleeves this time. Then some really cheap nylon/lycra rib (labelled as “supplex” but who knows?) from the bargain section at only $2 per metre. That will be a couple of pairs of leggings and a sleeveless top B5954 View A. The selvedges are fabulously fuzzy after washing and drying (yes, I’ve done that already) so I just might use them to finish off the armholes and neckline. Lastly is some grey marl bamboo/lycra that will become a Katherine Tilton B5925 View A t-shirt and possibly another more plain t-shirt. Obviously I have every piece spoken for already.

Lest you think I went overboard, I left an awful lot of fabrics still in the store. Just sayin’. I’ve been prepping the patterns ready to cut out a bunch of garments to sew very soon. My big challenge is the Battle of the Leggings or “Marcy Tilton vs Kwik-Sew”. I want a basic leggings pattern with no outer leg seam and since these ones are in the pattern stash, I’m going to test them out:

It’ll be fun. More on this as progress is made.

And we never made it to Button Button at all, sadly. I truly hope that Pat and Anne survived the trip back to their hotel. I’m a little worried since I haven’t heard from them since? Hope they aren’t lost in the wilds of downtown Vancouver. Let me know you got home safe, will you? Love, Damselfly.

So I think the Blogger Meetup was a big success! Folks came from all over to attend. We’re talking places as far flung as LA, Chicago, Florida, London (UK), Holland, Toronto, Victoria and New York! Wow. I didn’t take part in all the events but I had a great time nonetheless. Biggest warm thanks to our hosts: Suzanne Carillo, Melanie Kobayashi and Sue (A Colourful Canvas) for all your work organising this epic blogger meetup. I’m sure my hometown never knew what hit them! I sure don’t.