A visit to NYC & Koos

 

After teaching ten classes at Quilt Festival, Philippa Naylor was tired and wanted to spend a few days in New York City before flying back to the UK so I gave her the tour! First stop the Met Museum with lovely works that could all be inspiration for a quilt in our eyes!

Next stop was the KOOS boutique where the owner, Puck, showed us the newest artwear creations while we tried on a few! The store is on Madison at 92nd St and a must for all you collage lovers! It’s small but packed with the most beautiful mixes of fabrics and just exciting things to see! I wrote the book, Koos Collage Couture, 22 years after apprenticing with Koos while at Pratt Institute. You can find Koos on facebook where he posts photos of his latest creations.

 

Rockefeller Center-left- had ice skaters (and also the Anthropologie flagship store). Bryant Park-right-behind the library on Fifth and 42nd Street was transformed into a fantastic winter venue! They had an ice rink and then all these temporary little kiosks of vendors where we got such items as NYC scenes on tiles and t-shirts. It was very warm weather and fun to walk around the park shopping. Then we met my friend Michael and ate outside while watching the skaters and enjoying the warm night air!

Our last day we spent at Koos’s workroom in the Garment District.

   I saw this dress and fell in love with it years ago. It has  interesting side draping and a fishtail drape in the center back! So unusual and I love unusual so I traced off the pattern. Well, it was so complex, I couldn’t make heads or tails of it so one of the

ladies helped me cut it out and pin it together for me to take home and sew. It came out beautifully  and I ended up making a second one too! It’s very forgiving fit. Philippa and I went fabric shopping to all the fantastic stores around there including MOOD,the famous store from Project Runway and she got some beautiful red and black wool.  Then we went to the best leather store around called Leather, Suede, Skins and she bought some fox dyed bright red to make a matching collar! It’ll be spectacular and unique for sure!

We ate great food and shopped until we dropped! The best thing we did was to see Daniel Radcliffe on Broadway in How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. He was a super song and dance man and amazing to watch/that show is a MUST SEE! Perhaps we can make NYC an annual trip after Houston!

Happy Thanksgiving to all!