Stashoholism Confessional and Random Projects

I am working on a Mondrian Dress and it is going to be SO CUTE. Except my stomach might be too big for it. And my butt. (Note: the problem is not that I made the dress too small.) I bought 5 yards of ribbon for it and wanted to add just 8 more inches. I could have lived without it, but I would always have regretted those 8 inches. I had a baby shower to go to on Sunday in the far wilds of Maryland, so I got dropped at a Red line station on the way back and metroed out to White Flint so I could hit up the G Street. I walked through the store chanting, "Only ribbon, only ribbon, only ribbon, and maybe a zipper" but of course they put the $2.97/yd table right at the entrance to ribbons and trims so I couldn't help but glance at it and then get drawn irresistably toward it.

I didn't do *so* horribly, though I fear the green knit print was a mistake. I love the motif and I like the colors, but I think the motif is too small and won't read as anything but stripes from a distance. For some reason, I don't wear a lot by way of stripes. I don't know why. So I feel weird when I do wear them.



I have BWOF 06-2008-128 in mind for the satin version of the print on the left. The hemline looks fairly straight to take advantage of the border print, and the drape of poly satin will work well with the style. Yes, I bought poly. The sheer will be part of the awesome Halloween costumes Cidell and I are making. Are you ready? Wait for it, wait for it, are you ready? Retro Air Hostesses. OMG we will be so cute.

I bought the green print to be a winter work top, even though I don't wear print tops I made one recently that makes me think it can be done, with the right print and the right pattern. But now I think it might need to be a dress. Perhaps the Tippi Hedren Dress from BWOF 02-2008-103? But I kind of have the aqua and white floral from this post in mind for that dress and I don't know as I'll want two.

The purple print I just loved (though after washing it I discovered there are ink stains all along one side about 4 inches in from the selvage; they are not too noticeable with the busy print, and it was $2.97/yd, but still). I have no ideas. It's a rayon, judging by the way it felt wet, and drapes like a cotton jersey. I never have enough patterns for knits and now that I don't have access to a Joann for cheap patterns I'm not sure what to do! Anyone have any dress suggestions for this fabric?

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I also ordered, a while back, another yard and a half of yellow stretch twill from Fashion Fabrics Club, which has already been turned into this shrug (with bonus sneak peek at maxi dress). I am going to rant a little bit about FFC. When I made my order, ITY knits were on sale so I ordered some to bring me up to five yards, because there's no point in paying shipping for more yards than you ordered and it's flat rate up to five yards. First of all, they took an entire week to process my order. Second of all, by the time they processed my order all the knits I had ordered were out of stock. Which is annoying; is a reasonably real-time inventory count on the website too much to ask? The week delay makes me feel that they didn't process the orders in the sequence they were made so I could have lost out to someone who placed their order after me, but I'm willing to believe they were swamped and that didn't happen. But what is even more annoying is that they did not notify me that the knits were out of stock, just shipped my order with only the twill at the full five yard shipping price. Had I known the knits were gone I probably would have ordered a few yards of basics. So not only did they make me mad and waste my shipping money, they lost some sales. But the shrug is supercute.



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My next pattern review will be for McCall 5426. I got the fabric in My Tho, Vietnam in the Mekong Delta. I didn't bargain for this one; I was with my work colleagues and our translator arranged the purchase for me (you can read about it here). How much do we love the orange shoes? I was lusting after them on 6pm.com for months and finally had to give in.