Print Phobia

I have had to constantly remind myself all day today that I didn't have time to sew a dress.  Oh, I did, but I had other stuff that needed doing and I couldn't do both.

So, as I did the other stuff, which included driving around and sitting around waiting on appointments and such, I spent a good bit of mental time puzzling over my lack of decision making skills.  And I think I figured out my problem...or at least a good chunk of it.

The fabrics that I have pulled to turn into dresses are prints.  Lovely prints.  And I realized that I am afraid to turn a print into a dress...afraid it will have placement problems, look too girlish for my, ahem, current life stage, just afraid that it will look home made, as a dress that is beautifully constructed out of a poorly chosen print tends to do.

I will make a top from a print.  I will make a skirt from a print.  But making a dress from a print is, for some reason, now outside of my comfort zone.

Meantime, it is somewhat ironic that the dress I will be taking to wear to the festivities is a print (Textile Studio's Madison Avenue dress, which is unfortunately a bit snugger now that it was when I made it and wrote the review.  I will be packing shapewear). And it works for the pattern.

One of the fabrics is a stretch woven...a rayon-and-lycra blend.  It stretches as much as a knit; it's as drapey as a knit; I'm thinking I should just treat it as though it were a knit...just add a zipper and go on.  Maybe.

But these are summery fabrics, and when I get back from the wedding I'll be ready to start sewing September choir clothes.  In fact, I must...I have nothing mauve or dusty pink in the closet at the moment.  So the summer fabrics are going to get packed back up into the stash for another season.

Maybe by then I will have worked through my phobia.

The Paralysis of Analysis...

My niece is getting married this weekend, and the Princess and I are roadtripping up to the ol' stomping grounds for the festivities.

I'd *really* like something new to wear, but, well, this is a busy week and it's not likely to happen.

Not because I'm so short of time, necessarily, but because I can't make up my mind.

I have a several nice pieces of fabric that I've purchased over the last couple of years, intending to make dresses...maxi dresses, knit dresses, sheath dresses...yeah...yet I just can't commit any one of them to a particular pattern.

I can make a knit dress in three-ish hours...but not if I spend two of those three hours pulling out patterns, mulling over patterns, and looking for alternate patterns.

The real problem is that I don't have a TNT for what I want.  And that's the truth.

So, instead of making a decision and cutting something out, I made a necklace and earrings that will coordinate with next month's choir wardrobe.

Not terribly happy with this, either, but I can always cut the wire and restring the beads if I get a better idea (or if I learn to finish off the ends better...)

So, yeah.  Still not sewing....

Choir Wardrobe 0812

Wow, that looks awfully...um...balooney?  I think it's an optical illusion; it looks like the purple scarf is on top of an empire waist top; actually, that's the Jalie 2919 cardigan over the Jalie 695 tank top, both made from a tealy blue rayon blend knit.  And it looked a lot better in the mirror.

Wait, you say, that's an odd color combo.  Well, we have an entire palette of colors to choose from for choir this month; I'd post the photo that we were given on our private Facebook page, but I couldn't get to the original source and I didn't want to repost something I couldn't attribute.  The colors on the palette were aqua, dark tealy turqoise, purple, mossy green  and a taupey cream color.  With the exception of the purple, they all look rather muted to me.  But our director called them 'peacock colors'...and I always picture jewel tones when I think about peacock feathers.  So it was with some trepidation that I chose things to wear with the CWC knit jeans today...I wasn't 100% sure what the colors were.  But, since I haven't gotten ANY laundry done since we got home last Monday (something going on every.day. this. week.  And most evenings...), I kinda had a limited selection from which to choose.  Hence the ...different....combo.

Although I kinda like it.  ;-)

I'm actually contemplating September's wardrobe, brown, mauve and cream; I have another short out of town trip coming up at the end of the month, and we have some duty assigned to us next week that could easily preclude singing in the choir...so in all honesty, this may be the only post for August.

If I could manage to get any time at all w/ the sewing machine, though, I could use some stuff for next month...