Shopping For Fabric

As the shopping season is upon us, I find myself in the middle of getting a couple of projects completed for early exhibits in 2009. Hard to believe we are soooo close to the start of new year. On Wed. I found myself in need of some 'color'. Colors in order to make my projects work, so I called a friend and made a plan to do a fast run up to the fabric district in Downtown LA.

For a number of years I have shared my shopping haunts in this area of Los Angeles through a map on my website, http://www.rosehughes.com/ ; but, this time I thought it would be fun to take some photos. The first photo is of the street signs on the corner of Maple & 9th, for most of my favorite stores are there between 8th & 9th.

It's a wonderful, wild street filled with lots and lots of stores full of fabric, so you can spend a lot of time wandering. As the picture shows your centrally located to several markets as well. I thought it fun that I capture the walk & green light. A good indicator. GO, GO, GO.

LA seems to have put in a new parking system. Most of the meters that let you come in for a quick hour rather inexpensively have been changed to a pay system that now costs $3 per hour. (guess they have to get their money somehow). There's plenty of lot choices as well, but if you are planning to go to Michael Levines they validate for an hour with a $20 purchase. They are also right there in the are of Maple & 9th.

My mission was several colors of dupioni silks and for that I headed straight for Fabrics & Fabrics at 403 E. 9th Street.

Even though the whole week had been wet and cold, the sun came out on this morning and everything was bright and fairly warm. A perfect day for wandering about. The guys at Fabrics & Fabrics are all very nice and are there to help you pull out all the rolls of color from the huge collections on the wall. They were even nice enough to let me take a couple of photos inside.

Hope you all get a chance to check it out sometime! ~Rose