FABRIC SHOPPING AT MOOD FABRIC - NEW YORK

If you've ever watched Project Runway, you already know Mood. It's the New York fabric shop the designers all pile into against the clock, and the one they thank on their way out the door every single episode. Three floors of fabric, the works. It's about as famous as a fabric shop gets.

So I'll admit, walking into the New York store for the first time felt like a bit of a moment. I was in the city for Fashion Week, and I'd gone in needing silk and silk organza for a French jacket I've been planning to make. I've built one of these before — the proper hand-tailored, slow couture way — so I knew roughly what I was hunting for. Didn't stop me standing in the middle of all those floors, fabric in every direction, feeling gloriously overwhelmed and trying to look like I had a plan. I went for a dark blue silk fabric and organza which would match with my tweed fabric below, that I had purchased in Italy.

Here's what a lot of people don't realise, though: Mood isn't only the New York store. There's one in Miami, practically on my doorstep, and a few others dotted around the country — so you don't have to be in Manhattan to get your hands on their fabric. And when I can't get to a store at all, I shop them online, which is its own strange gamble: buying fabric you can't touch, on a photo and a bit of faith. They are also helpful if you have questions about fabrics - I have emailed them before with questions.

And now the less glamorous confession. One thing I have purchased most from Mood isn't the showstopper silk. It's pattern paper. The boring, essential, always-run-out-at-the-worst-possible-moment staple. I restock it there because it's reliable and it actually turns up, and honestly, knowing where to buy the unexciting basics is half of sewing. Nobody's filming a reel about pattern paper. We all still need it. If you are new to sewing and not sure what pattern paper looks like it, here it is.

The French jacket those silks were for? Still in the planning pile. But when it happens, you'll hear about it — and it'll have started, like a lot of good things, with a slightly overwhelmed afternoon at Mood Fabrics.