ugly-pretty or just fugly?

Well, I didn't buy a bunch of random vintage fabrics... but I did end up doing a little stash shopping online for making (possibly) wearable muslins. I discovered fabric.com when I was looking at different types of knit fabric & I found their clearance section with an additional twenty percent off sale - plus they have free shipping on all orders over $35.  I bought 12 yards of fabric for $36.34 for my practice stash.  I bought them more for the types of fabrics they are and just tried to find my most preferred print that was the right weight and quality to practice for specific projects.  Brace yourselves.  Here's what I found.

The plaid is a lightweight brushed rayon/poly that I got because I want to practice plaid matching. The white/grey/mustard yellow print is a very light and somewhat sheer cotton voille that I would like to make a muslin of the Vogue pattern I recently bought. At $2.79 a yard, I thought this would be good for pratice and I think it might look pretty as a slightly sheer dress to wear over a vintage slip.

The floral and the ikat-inspired prints are both low-stretch knits that fabric.com described as suited for making dresses.  I have two patterns that I would like to try making with knit fabric and I have never really sewn with knits.  I think the black cotton/lycra that I have in my stash will be good for a circle skirt, but not for a knit dress. I've been reading that you want a lower percentage of stretch, so that it keeps some body and doesn't just show all ones curves and  imperfections. I purposfully looked for the stretchiest 4-way stretch fabric when I was searching for yoga clothes fabric a few months ago, so I decided that repurposing it for a skirt and searching out some other less stretchy fabric with which to practice knit dresses would be best.

I really like how fabric.com has lengthy descriptions of their fabrics and you can filter by so many criteria - including percentage of stretch.  This is so helpful for online shopping.  I also like how you can also filter by print themes, like floral and ikat, etc.  and build up a custom search from all different criteria.  If you are into a certain trend or idea, this robust search is really a helpful feature. The librarian in me approves.

I'm into both ikat and bold florals right now, conceptually... but I am not sure about wearing loud florals and big patterns.  I thought these prints were a good test of the general idea at about $3 each per yard.

I also bought two lots of vintage buttons from ebay - a large red lot and a large yellow lot. I am excited about this investment in having a lot of project options available for pratice... but I know that Rome wasn't built in a day, and that the best stashes are collected over time. I can't recreate what I lost with one marathon online shopping session.  I am willing to be patient. I am also now at peace with how much I have shopped for fabric for the moment and am going to skip my trip to Joann's and just sew this weekend.