Adding to the project list.

I don't know what to blame, Project Runway (of course I'm addicted, did you see the name of this blog?) or A Dress A Day, but suddenly I want to sew again. What the heck, it's only been about 23 years since I did my last serious sewing and I only have a list of projects (including "Fix What's Wrong With My Life" and "Get Out of Debt") as long as my arm to complete before I should start anything new.

However I WANT to sew, and you know how things you WANT to do suddenly become a priority, even when hunger comes a-knocking on the door.

Anyhoo, when I'm not drooling over mod fashion, I'm drooling over New Look (as in Christian Dior's "New Look", unveiled in 1947) styles, i.e., sloping shoulders, tiny waists, full skirts. Vintage dress of that style are hard to find in my very modern size, so I decided that I should make one as my return project. After a long obsessive search, I bought a 1952 pattern from Grandma's House, which, at the moment I'm afraid to even open, never mind cut. Then I went on an equally obsessive search for an appropriate fabric, something I'm not likely to find in my thoroughly white-bread and polyester community. After failing to find the bronze silk taffeta of my dreams (which probably isn't the best fabric to use on a maiden outing anyway), I decided on the purple Asian print cotton fabric picture above left. I ordered it online from Hart's Fabric; it arrived yesterday. And, oh, my children, it is BEE-OO-TI-FUL. The picture does not do it justice; the background color is the most luscious deep plum, the printed medallions, edged in metallic gold, stand out like jewels. My first impulse was to forget about mere mortal sewing, and just to wrap the material around my body, obi-style, which surely was its original purpose. But, reluctantly, I folded it up and put it and the pattern neatly away in My Closet of Future Projects. But I'll get to this one. Indeed I will.