Latest stash additions

The weather here has been pretty uneven lately and it's been hard to find a time when both the sun was out and my husband was willing to take pictures, so I haven't been able to get any pictures of my recent makes :(  Hopefully both weather and husband will prove more cooperative in the near future so I can work through my backlog.

In the meantime, please indulge me in a little showing-off.  These are the newest additions to the stash, though I have pretty concrete plans for most of them, so hopefully they won't linger in the stash for long!  Click on the pictures to enbiggen :)

Clockwise from top-left: Thakoon cotton lawn from Mood;
Printed silk charmeuse from Mood;
DKNY silk chiffon-satin from Elliott Berman;
Viscose knit from Elliott Berman

The Thakoon cotton has an unbelievably soft hand and it drapes like a silk-blend!  That's probably going to be a slim tank dress, drafted from the Wiksten Tank.  The silk charmeuse, which I purchased at the NYC store and could not find in Mood's online store, will probably be a sleeveless loose-fitting elastic-waist dress.  I'm not sure if it's easy to see from the picture, but the print looks like stalks of bamboo, and so I want to make a simple dress with straight lines to echo the linear look of the print.  I haven't decided on the neckline yet.  Burda 7335's boat neck looks very pretty, but the Twisted tank top from the July issue of Burda magazine also looks like it could work well with this print.  I fell in love with the DKNY print the first moment I saw it on Elliott Berman's website.  I was a little unsure exactly what "chiffon satin" meant, so I went to the physical store to check it out in person.  It's kind of like a light-weight charmeuse.  It's a little see-through so it will need lining, but it's a fair bit drapier than chiffon.  I kind of splurged and bought a lot of yardage because I wanted enough to make both a dress and a top with it.  The top will just be a simple tank, and I think the dress will be something similar to Simplicity 1880, with the surplice bodice.  The viscose knit caught my eye when I was at Elliott Berman picking up the DKNY silk, and I love how modern and trendy it looks.  That's probably going to be a cowl-neck tank dress, like Ichigogirl's Cowl Dress pattern.

Clock-wise from top left: Navy stripe knit from Finch Sewing Studio,
Navy and white viscose knit from Elliott Berman,
Black and white floral quilting cotton from Pins&Needles;
Eucalyptus shot-cotton from Finch Sewing Studio

I got the white and navy stripe knit to knock off a James Perse design.  The original dress is maxi-length but I think I'll make my dress knee-length, because I've never really been able to get into the whole "ankle-length dresses for informal occasions" thing. Seems rather impractical to me; it might work if you're a movie star and get chauffeured from red carpet to red carpet, but I like to have my legs be unhampered for walking and not have to worry about dragging my hem through dirt.  This second viscose knit is from the same trip to Elliott Berman.  If I hadn't exercised extreme self-restraint, probably at least two more cuts of fabric would have come home with me the same day.  This knit is going to be a "skater dress," a term I learned from other sewing blogs, which seems to refer to a knit dress with a close-fitting scoop-neck bodice, short sleeves, and flared skirt.  The print feels very girly so I thought it would work well in a dress with a sort of retro silhouette.  The black and white floral cotton was an impulse buy, because the moment I saw it I thought it would be perfect for a "Betty Draper dress."  I'm not absolutely sure what I want to do with the shot-cotton yet.  The soft hand and subtle drape makes me want to make a top out of it, but the crosswoven effect makes me want to make something with a twirly skirt to show it off.  Perhaps I could squeeze a tank top and a half-circle skirt out of it.

Clock-wise from top-left: Nani Iro White Fuccra and
Blue-Green Painting Check from Miss Matatabi;
Blue Herringbone Pencil from Superbuzzy;
Blue Bird's Eye from Miss Matatabi

This is just a portion of my Nani Iro haul from this season.  Miss Matatabi is a godsend for those of us not living in Japan!  The white Fuccra will probably be a Simplicity 2444.  The blue-green check will most likely be a Sewaholic Cambie with a straight neckline.  The Herringbone Pencil is going to be sort of frankenpattern'ed with a scoop neck fitted bodice from a vintage Simplicity pattern and a pleated skirt, with the white band running parallel to the hem of the skirt. The Bird's Eye is definitely going to be a Sewaholic Cambie.

All of this is very ambitious, obviously, which means the first thing I'm going to do is... buy more fabric because Pink Chalk is having a sale on voiles!