Footy and Fabric Shopping

Every time I go to Melbourne I want to go and live there.  When my family first migrated to Australia we lived in Melbourne, and whenever I go there now I wonder what I would be doing / where I would be living / what would be different if we had stayed there rather than relocated to Perth.   It is such a great city and we had a fabulous week.

I normally have a complete lack of interest in anything football but it was Grand Final week for Aussie Rules football.  My cohort being a lifelong Collingwood fan, most of our activities were footy related.  And I got really swept up in it and had a fantastic time!

There was the Footy Show, which was a huge laugh.

There was the Grand Final Parade through Melbourne.

And there was the gripping Grand Final (where I, with no interest in footy was screaming at the top of my lungs) with the bizarre draw which now requires the teams to replay the match a week later.  Huh??  I don't know if I can bear to watch it as the first was too much of a heart stopper!   We did consider staying on in Melbourne for it but that may have been footy overkill!

In between there was lots of enjoying the laneway eateries.

And the Titanic Artefacts exhibition at the Melbourne Museum - and finally, as the Museum was just round the corner from the Fabric Store some fabric shopping.  OH YESSS!!!

If we had this shop in Perth I would be in fabric heaven.  Loads of great fabrics.  They seem to have lots of stuff from Aussie designers like Scanlan & Theodore, Bettina Liano and Lisa Ho, plus some overseas fabrics from Marc Jacobs and Donna Karan.  And the prices are really reasonable.  They even have a loyalty card where you get $50 credit when you have racked up 10 stamps.  Actually, if we had this store in Perth I would be bankrupt!

In a 1/2 hour shopping frenzy I acquired:

The brown fabric is an amazing plasticised lace, I'm thinking for a jacket.   The others are knits: the blue is a Marc Jacobs cotton lycra, the pink is a lovely silky Scanlan & Theodore viscose, and the black is a fine Bettina Liano tshirting.   I also got some Lisa Ho trims. 

There were lots of nice silks and wintery fabrics, particularly a sizeable range of merino knits in various colours and weights, but I had to remind myself that summer is coming.

Finally, in my last hours in Melbourne a trip to Tessuti. I hadn't been to the Melbourne store before but it is a lovely, airy space, of course full of gorgeous fabrics.

The photo doesn't do justice to the fabric on the right.  It is a sort of laminated distressed brown denim - perfect for a leathery looking jacket.

And, my final purchase - from MagNation - a La Mia Boutique.   Also spotted Patrones. 

Time to go and stroke my fabric and watch the Grand Final (again).

Go the Pies!