So much for parity

I was so proud of myself for resisting personal purchases while I was chasing down Bible costume fabric...and then, yesterday, I happened to check out the dollar table at the Wal-Mart closest to me (the first time I'd looked closely at it since we moved to this end of town). I was really surprised to see some fairly nice stuff on it. I found a piece of stone-colored herringbone suiting that appears to be a poly microfiber, and got 6 yards, telling myself that, since DH has decided to join the choir at church, it would be nice to make him a new Bible costume at some point in the future, because he will need it eventually. His old costume is from the boat-neck Simplicity pattern; he'd be happy enough with it but I don't like it; it looks uncomfortable. Anyway, six yards is plenty for a new basic robe; I might even get a skirt or pair of pants out of what's left over. ;)

I also found this interesting piece of fabric:



You can see how loosely it's woven; I just slid some of the threads over w/my thumbnail; any seams in it need to be reinforced so they don't just pull out. I was thinking I'd like a new Bible costume myself and thought this would work, but there was only 3 1/3 yds of it, and a basic Bible robe takes 4. I got it anyway, thinking perhaps I'd make a shorter overdress thing, but when I got home with it I realized it has almost all the summer choir colors in it...I could wear it with pink, blue and lavendar. So now I've decided it has to be a jacket. It's really pretty cheap fabric...it's coarse and floppy...so I'm not sure what style. I'll have to fuse textured weft to it so that it has enough body to hold together and hang nicely, but I'm almost afraid it's too loosely woven to fuse well. I think some testing is called for.

Meantime, I need to work on the six soldier tunics, 3 robes and two vest coats we cut out yesterday for, um, next Saturday. So that will be idea perculation time.