I’ve tried to plan my days out ahead of time, but I’m not sure how that will work. Today went according to plan, though. I got up with tall!boy and took the bus over to Clement St. Fabrix happens to be across the street from Go Figure, which is awfully fortuitous. The bus went right by Japantown, which I didn’t even know existed. Sometimes I wish I was able to enjoy all of the Asian areas of San Francisco. The last time I was here, I spent half a day in Chinatown and all the incense and smells and such gave me a horrible headache that I can’t seem to forget. I can’t eat any of the food, which makes it difficult to enjoy the area, too. I guess in Japantown I could have at least gotten some awesome candy. But I was on a mission and didn’t stop to browse.

At Fabrix, I was looking for dupioni for my next wearable, Mrs Peacock. At the Dallas show, I bought some fat quarters in the colors I want to use, but the yardage is $18. Fabrix has all their dupioni for $9.99 a yard (!) and I managed to find not only three of the colors I need but also some silk organza in the green that I need for the underneath part of the train. Now I just need to track down a chartreuse and a copper. I suspect Silk Road will have what I need but before I go over there, I need to make up a mock ‘eye’ and guesstimate how many yards I’ll need to make 150 of these suckers plus the little things at the base of the tail

Go Figure is an interesting plus-size boutique. I suspect there are just some differences in what silhouettes are popular in SF versus Austin. I did find a pretty shawl and a jersey top but for the most part it was all wrong for my shape and way too expensive. I loved talking with the gal in there, but there just wasn’t much to interest me. Especially since I can sew my own clothes, too.

I met tall!boy’s new co-workers and boss for dinner tonight and still had time to kill before I needed to head back to the hotel, so I went over to Needlepoint, Inc and Britex. I bought a little thing at Needlepoint, Inc but won’t be going back there for anything but floss/wool/yarn. The canvases were ex-pen-SIVE. At Britex, not only did I strike out in the remnants section and the dupioni section, but I managed to anger a sales clerk. She was suggesting that $50 a yard was cheap for dupioni and I said “That’s ridiculous. You have a very warped sense of value. This fabric is of lower quality that what I bought earlier for $10 a yard. It’s looser woven and the dye will run if it even comes within a foot of water.” She literally spun on her heel and walked away with an audible huff. Well, what can I say? I said the truth! Some of the things I’ve bought there before are wonderful quality, but this particular piece was atrocious.

With still more time to kill, I decided to take the F line street car down to FLAX art supply. Now, I’ve take the route before so I didn’t bother to check the schedule before I left the hotel. And it never occurred to me that the protesters all over Market Street would cause any delays. But they canceled F line service down where I was standing. I waited there for 30 minutes before I thought to check the SFMTA website for info. I ended up taking the Muni subway-esque train down and walking a few blocks. I guess it’s a good thing I had been there before and knew where it was.

Sadly, having been there before meant that I didn’t feel the need to walk around and be awed by the coolness that is FLAX. I was able to get the colored pencils I needed and a sketch pad in a number of minutes. The sketch pad is, for lack of a better phrase, the coolest. It’s held together by three rings, but it flips back like a regular spiral book. It means that I can refill it will all kinds of paper and run paper through the printer and color in the lines. I’m such a child! And as a child, I really loved coloring inside the lines.

Dinner was a a Florentine Italian restaurant called Firenze. Delish.