New Farbrics

I swatched a ton of fabrics so I'd be able to make quick decisions and then get the fabric here as soon as I am ready to start a garment in order to take advantage of my limited sewing time. I pinned the swatches and some images of patterns and inspiration to a curtain that acts as one of the closet doors in my sewing room. It's kind of like a billowy bulletin board.  One of the fabrics that was on my short list for a low yardage shirt (because it is pricy!) is this Liberty lawn (which, confusingly, seemed to go from in stock and reorderable to unavailable forever very quickly).

The other day, tempted to buy some chocolate flocked silk chiffon that was the "special of the day" from Mood, I was browsing and saw what appeared to be the Liberty lawn I had my eye on listed as "multi colored floral printed cotton voile". I pulled out my swatch and they are the exact same pattern only this fabric was nearly a third of the price! So I ordered a few yards for a future top. It turns out that it is the same pattern but a slightly different colorway... less pastel and more saturated jewel tones which I actually like much better. I don't know what the deal is but maybe some other Liberty fabrics will make an
appearance incognito at Mood. We can hope!

The color is a little richer then this picture.

The silk is lovely. I jumped on it and ordered before I considered that I do not dry clean. You can wash silk (some suggestions here) so hopefully that works out. I don't mind hand washing a few things but dry cleaning is a total deal breaker. Since it's so sheer and slightly rough it needs to be lined. Yall, the china silk I swatched is possibly the nicest thing I've ever held in my hand. I need to wash the swatch and see how the texture changes. I also swatched a cotton and silk voile that is extra lovely. Probably one of those will end up being the lining.

Also in that batch was an on sale Italian made stretch cotton in a bottom weight with an interesting black and white print. It ends up looking a little stripy and I thought that the stripes were vertical (not sure why I thought that) but alas, they are horizontal. This would not be the end of the world (and I would just rotate the fabric) except that the stretch is of course also horizontal and I was hoping to take advantage of that.

"official" liberty lawn swatch to the right on top of the look alike

I went back to Joanns for more muslin (because Sorbetto took 5!) and then I discovered a drawer of old sheets I was saving for just this purpose. Oh well, at least I have plenty of fabric to work with on my mock ups. I found a purple version of the gingham shirting I bough last time, a Mater and Lightning McQueen flannel (Small has been asking me for a car shirt but I can't bring myself to put tacky branded fabric on him as a regular shirt so these will become PJ pants and his car shirt will probably be made from Gentlemen, Start Your Engines. Also loving this Aviator Les Monsieurs en Ville), and a fun orange print fabric all on sale. I only bought a small quantity of the orange since I can't really wear that color and I'll be using it to line something fun. Possibly this reversible bag. Simple but fun.

I still have the green shot cloth. I wanted to refine my Sorbetto before I sewed it up in a solid color because I feel like patterned fabric hid some of the weirdness of the dart placement. The next Sorbetto is going to be v-neck and have buttons (probably all of my Sorbettos will since I like v-necks and buttons allow me to fit it well while still being able to put it on!). I'm working on a version with front princess seams as well as another version where I transform the top bust dart (or maybe it's a sleeve dart?) into a gathered yoke at the shoulders and then do tiny tucks under each breast in the front instead of the weird long under bust darts I ended up with in my first version. I think those details will look cool in a solid fabric.

In other news, my mint is going insane so I'm going to do a big batch of mint extract. Also, the tiger lilies I bought as part of my son's school fundraiser are about to burst into bloom so pictures soon.