I've Been to the Holy Land.

The fabric mecca. It was awesome and I could kick myself for waiting so long!

I arrived early in the morning (the early bird gets better parking rates at the PATH station), before all the shops were open, so I decided to go to Times Square and walk around. Good Morning America was playing on ABC's jumbotron, and I remembered that they have free concerts in the park so I walked over there. What a beautiful little park in the middle of all the skyscrapers. And look, over there to the right -- they have movies in the park! How cool! But I digress.

The free concert. OMG it was Hannah Montana!!!! (You have to read that in your best screaming twelve year old voice!) Who the heck is HM??? I've never seen so many screaming little preteen girls in my life! It was pretty cute. I walked around the outskirts of the concert and happened to be on the street near the Bryant Park Hotel, when the flurry of body guards and HM made their exit. I had the perfect up close, unobstructed, picture of the starlet herself that I was going to post for those of you with little girls, but my shutter wouldn't snap and in a split second the opportunity was gone. Oh well. I was comforted in the fact that it wasn't Sawyer -- a missed close-up of him would have been truly tragic!Ahem. Back to Mecca. Now, we can have my screaming old woman voice. Holy Cow! I was beginning to get all emotional with the beauty of all those fabric, button, trim, etc. shops when I passed this shirt:No. Really. I don't think it would have been appropriate for me to show my emotion. They would have taken me away. I visited many of the shops that others have described, and like Flibbertygibbet, I'll forgo the links here and leave that up to Liesl's fine post. And, I'll just summarize, as both Flibbertygibbet and Yarnstorm have just been to visit this past week and they have fabulous write-ups!

I spent most of the morning in the garment/fashion district. Gail...what on earth could you have been thinking by sending me to Daytona? Did you notice how many fabric stores are on that street? I'm not young like you are. My heart almost couldn't take it. At least you had the good sense to teach me your breathe in, breathe out techniques months ago. It came in very handy. Thanks for the great recommendation -- I hadn't seen Daytona on the other blogs, and like you, I loved the place.

And I thought I'd lose my mind in B&J fabrics. I've never seen so many cottons with lycra in one place. It was interesting though and shows that you have to be careful. One of the Hop Skip Jump prints was on a big roll of fabric in the cotton section for $12.95/yd. Much higher than the $9.xx/yd print on the bolt at Purl. The fabric width was the same -- maybe you just pay more for the privilege of having no fold in your fabric? MJ Trim and Tinsel Trading's ribbon shop were other favorites. I mostly just found myself wandering around wondering what other fabulous shops were hidden among those monster buildings that we don't know about.

I walked all over and managed to cover more shops than I thought I would in the short time I had. I was surprised, really, at how small all the shops are. These places are larger than life in blogland. Nowhere was this more evident than at Purl and Purl Patchwork. Tiny little shops. But so well loved. I pondered this fact while flying home on Friday night and decided it's just the sheer quality of the product inside. And then, probably almost at the same time I was flying, Jane wrote this post which said it all about Purl, much better than I could.

A few other favorites:
This is why I don't want to park in NYC. Just how do they get those cars on that 4th tier???Probably a common sight, but not in my neighborhood. Too fun!And of course, I had to go to these two places. Research, you understand. A taste comparison.
But could I make a decision? No. Perhaps Magnolia makes the better cupcake. I bought a few to bring home and they survived being slammed against the top of the box while I ran through O'Hare trying to make a tight connection. (Which was pointless, 'cause even though you get to your gate and watch the plane sitting there for 10 minutes, if you and the other delayed passengers are a second past the boarding window, fuggeddaboutit. At least there was a cupcake to console me.)

So. I loved it. The quilty peeps and I are hoping to go to NYC in the fall. Ladies, Mr Doubtfire said it best to Mrs. Doubtfire: "Brace yourself, Effie." Yup. Methinks it's as good as what Effie was in for!

XOXO,
Anna

P.S. Isabelle has her person from Salford. And I have my Karen, the mystery person who is leaving me wonderful comments. Karen, I'd like to respond to you, but blogger is giving my no hints about who you really are -- I don't think you're my Ohio friend Karen or Yellow Farmhouse Karen. What other Karen am I forgetting about? Please send me an e-mail, so I'll know!