Sewing Chores, Fabric Stash and a Quickie Dress Project.

My Stash of Fabric...Sexy, No?

 I am sort of in sewing limbo or maybe I am just feeling uninspired and not creative, the weather has gotten freezing for me and it gets so dark so early now I feel more like hibernating and less like creating, even my music has sort of suffered from  my creative apathy.

I feel very much like I am not producing anything and I haven't for some weeks. This is due in large part to the fact that I am starting a very big, complicated project The "Glad To Be Plaid" Sport Coat and the last week has been consumed by the dread sewing chores....cutting out the muslin and marking all the pieces, talk about un-stimulating!

I know that this project will be extremely time consuming, I also know that it will be sometime before I even begin constructing the actual garment and since I do not work on more than one project at a time (this is due to lack of actual space and an attempt to ensure that I complete the things I start)  I feel that I won't be producing anything to actually wear for some months. This knowledge in no way helps spur me out of my creative coma, in fact it sort of depresses me more.

So....I have all these beautiful fabrics in my stash and while musing upon my lack of creative motivation I thought maybe I should whip up a simple dress in a week or two before I really dig in my heels and start my sport coat. The benefits of this would be many....I could use up a beautiful fabric in my stash that I have had for awhile, a gorgeous Wool Challis that I bought on Gorgeous Fabrics, starting & finishing something in a relatively short time span would make me feel more productive and therefore more creative hopefully fueling my creative fire and I would have a pretty Fall appropriate dress that I could wear with stockings, boots, coat & scarf, Perfecto! My mind was made up and off I went to find the perfect pattern.

Wool Challis

I actually knew what pattern I wanted to use, a McCall's pattern that had a very simple, side zip dress (view D) and when it went on sale for $1.00 at Joann's I bought it and very excitedly whisked it home to begin my Fall dress....

McCall's #M6355

Of course there was a hitch...there is always a hitch. I lay it out to check to ensure there is enough yardage and of course there is not and it occurs to me the reason I have not used this fabric yet is because there is just never quire enough of it for anything I want to make; two yards but it isn't a terribly wide textile.

Ugh! I tried every which way to make it work using all manner of cutting layouts and the only way it will work is if I cut the sleeves off grain....I am not keen on doing this. It makes me afraid that it will turn out draping unattractively on the body plus if the fabric shrinks during the treating process I am screwed anyway. Let's just say my creative juices that had just started flowing again through the cobwebbed recesses of my heart came to a screeching halt!

I was sad for a couple reason...1) maybe I am never going to find a nice pattern to use this fabric for and it will languish unloved on my stash shelf for eternity and 2) I am back to square one with nothing before me except the yawning chasm of sewing chores that are the necessary starting place of such a daunting project like my sport coat...I hemmed and hawed for a few days about how the sewing gods were against me and my fall sewing season was going to produce very little and that all I had to look forward to for sometime were those hideously tedious sewing chores: fabric marking, fabric prep, muslin making, pattern altering, etc.

Then it struck me...I had just ordered 3yd of a really cool vintage silk off Etsy from a really nice lady in Germany and it would be perfect. I just received it a couple days ago and it is perfect! The seller stated that it is from the 80's and the selvages are marked 100% silk in English and in German.

100% "German" Silk

So...I am going to start this project very soon, hopefully by Sunday and hopefully it will only take a little bit of time. I plan to underline it for warmth, stability and modesty or maybe I could make it reversible? The directions do talk about how to do this...creative juices are now pulsing through my veins, yay! I forsee myself wearing it with tights, boots, a scarf and a coat!

I am feeling more inspired already and less oppressed by a list of chores a mountain high that has to be clambered over to reach the fun stuff.

Anyway, what's in your stash and do sewing chores ever kill you creative mojo? Where do you look for inspiration?

I'd love to hear from you.

Cheers!

Amelia