Work Work Work (and Rewards)

It's been kind of a rough week at work, but things are looking up. I've been working on a large deal for a long time and yesterday was the first stage of the closing. It went well! There were no issues regarding loan covenants (yay!), which is usually where closings go bad.

However, the days leading up to this were horrible. I spent a marathon day at work on Wednesday, rewriting the credit proposal at the last minute. Then I spent most of my day yesterday redrawing documents before heading out of town and arriving at the title company with minutes to spare.

I rewarded myself by stopping in at the outlet mall on my way back to town. It has a Jones NY there, and they're probably my favorite RTW--and face it, I would be running around naked if I had to sew all of my clothes. They had a lot of goodies on the clearance rack this time. I ended up with several items--2 skirts, 2 pair of work trousers, a top, and a pair of dark brown jeans. Average price, $25 per item. And I like them all, which is key when buying clearance and outlet. It's no bargain to buy ugly, ill fitting items just because the price is low. Although Jones does great collections, these are all individual pieces. That's fine because all were neutral shades except for the top, which is a light turquoise that I always wear well. Several of the pieces I bought reminded me of Loes Hinse.

I wish I had a source for Jones' fabrics. 2 items really stood out in this category. The first is a gored skirt in camel/cream/gray floral. The fabric is a tropic weight wool and rayon blend. The second is a pair of buckskin-colored trousers. Although they look almost like suede when worn, the fabric is a silk/linen blend. I had another pair in this fabric already, and they're wonderful. The fabric combines the best of each fiber, resulting in a cool wearing garment that doesn't wrinkle excessively and holds its shape. Both of these fabrics would be such a pleasure to sew, if they could be found.

By the way, Jones NY has a website, http://www.jonesnewyork.com/. I browse it from time to time for inspiration. Jones is mainstream, yes, but they produce a classic look that informs my sewing efforts.

Before I forget--my Vogue sale patterns arrived in the mail during the work crunch. I won't go into details now, but getting them was another nice treat.