A Dress Made Possible by the Internet

I take part in a few different sewing forums and discussions on the internet. It’s a nice way to discuss issues that may not be burning topics for the people I interact with in real life. My sewing buddies on the net are just the people to discuss the various attributes of various kind of interfacings or various ways to insert a zipper of fabric sources.

In a discussion of various fabrics we had all purchased in www.fabricmartfabrics.com mystery bundles, one person mentioned that she had purchased an orange printed cotton that she found hideous. She posted a photo of the said fabric. I loved it. I proposed a trade with fabric  from a mystery bundle that didn’t suit me. The woman who hated this fabric had the gentle coloring that blonds often have. For her, the orange was quite hideous. It works with my coloring.

I did have a pale greenish taupe sweater knit in my stash that made me tired just looking at it. We agreed to a trade. she made a terrific hooded sweater out of the sweater knit. This orange cotton was sitting on my shelf waiting it’s turn to be turned into a dress.

My husband and I have been watching Mad Men. as you might expect, I have been in love with the clothing. I decided to make the sort of dress that Joan Holloway might have worn if she had dark hair and yellow based skin.

I used the Cal  Patch book on pattern making to roughly guide my efforts. I could go through and list all of the short comings of my work, but I am not going to bother. I’m probably going to wear this dress to services on Saturday. It’s my father’s third yahrzeit. I realized working on this dress that it remind me of a very fancy dress my father bought for my mother to wear to my cousin Bonnie’s wedding.  She and her husband Arne just celebrated their 50th anniversary last week.


And on a completely unrelated note. The Shabbat before we left for Israel I made couscous. We didn’t finish it.  That couscous has been sitting in a container in the bottom of the fridge. It has transformed itself into a penicillin farm.  I just couldn’t deal with opening that container.  I asked my 15 year old to set a price for cleaning the container. He named a price. I was happy to meet it. he was happy to have the cash in his pocket.