sneak peak.

Sneak peak of the anchors away muslin, with more pictures tomorrow. This picture is terrible, but I've been wearing my dress all evening, and I rather like it - though we had sort of a tiff there for a bit.  As you can see, I thought better of the little red hearts... they were just too precious. Happily I got in the mail an order of two lots of vintage buttons - one in yellows and one in reds. What a bounty!  From this treasure trove, I selected these very simple pale yellow buttons that fit my buttonholes perfectly & I sewed them on with the same bright red thread for a teensy little hint of whimsy, which is about the right amount, I have decided.

 Here is the haul from the red stash... the top ones all have some matches, as you can see and the crufty ones are over in the lower left, while the lower right has lots of one-offs that are all fine - with a few really lovely singles.

The yellow lot was much smaller, but still lots of good matches, as you can see here... and also some good one-offs. Here are a few of my favorite singles in the yellow lot.

Some of the single ones in the yellow lot were all the same size and might look cute in a sort of mix/match look at some point... I'm not sure when or where, but it's something to keep in mind. 

I've been working through the worksheets for Wardrobe Architect and thinking a lot about style and function lately.  I plan to write more about that within the next few days, as I let the ideas percolate and reflect on what I like already and what I would envision for myself in an ideal world. 

A few of the things that resonated with me in the first lesson that I would like to change are:

• You tend to buy quantity over quality more than you’d like.
• You buy things that are “close enough.”
• When buying fabric, you go for the bright and shiny instead of the fabrics you really like to wear.

So, I was really happy today to get an email from fabric.com about my fugly order.  The two jersey stretch prints that I ordered just because they were close enough were actually out of stock by the time my order got through... so they cancelled them, gave me my money back and still gave me free shipping on the other two cuts... the plaid is just a couple yards to play with plaid matching... but the four yards of voille, I am really excited about for making a muslin of that Vogue pattern I bought recently. 

I was relieved that now I have a do-over and can get some knits from Girl Charlee that I would actually like to wear.  That is the trick with wearable muslins... if you can wear them, you don't want them made out of fugly fabric... just that if they turn out unwearable you haven't spent a fortune or used something totally unique that you really loved. 

I am determined to rid myself of a lot of "fast-fashion" items that are not my favorites... well - my version of fast fashion, which is thrifted stuff... the cast-offs of the "fast-fashion" world, actually.  I don't want to end up with the home-sewing equivalent of "fash-fashion" with a bunch of annoying "wearable" muslins made out of things I don't really want to wear. 

This is a very good thing to work through these exercises before proceeding with a lot of fabric shopping or sewing projects.  I feel like I am getting a plan and getting some things that I am dying to make very clearly coming together in my head that I will be thrilled to see come to fruition in good time. I'm pretty excited about this process, thus far.