Volume 1, Issue 75, June 1, 2010: Vintage African Dress

I really love African fabrics; they are very colorful, vibrant and versatile. I always wanted a nice dress made from Kente or Ankara fabric. So I decided, when I get a little bit of money, I'll construct an dress from a vintage 1950s-early 1960s dress pattern. I really love 1950s silhouette they are very flattering to my hourglass type figure. These are just some random fabrics swatches that I like. I want this dress to be very feminine, flirty and be able to be worn during the daytime and the evening.

Here are some dress patterns that I like:

Volume 1, Issue 57, March 15, 2010: The Ides of March/ Sewing Project

Happy Ides of March! Well this isn't really a day for celebration but this is the day that Julius Casear was assissignated. Et tu brute?

Anyways, I'm starting my sewing project soon and I have to sew this dress and make a decorative emblishement for it. This should be fun but I'm a little nervous because I'm not the world's best sewer and I'm being graded on this. I'll have to make a trip to the fabric store. I'm not sure whether I should go to the Hancock Fabrics store in Waldorf or Joanns and Gstreet in Seven Corners. But where ever I can the best look fabric. The dress that I will be making will be the one that is black and white but I want to use a solid color on the skirt of the dress and a printed fabric at the bodice. The colors I'm considering are red, turquiose, mustard yellow, emerald green and a deep royal purple or blue. I want something bold and eye catching.

Volume 1, Issue 38, December 26, 2009: Georgetown Fabric Haul

I'm feeling a little bit better today. I got some money for Christmas and I was so excited. Usually, when I get Christmas money I spend it on clothes but this year, I've decided to be more frugal and smart on my spending. Which is good because I'm going to need all of that extra cash to fund all of my upcoming projects and hustling schemes.

Today I went out to vent and shop and I ended up in Georgetown because I heard that there was a fabric store there. The fabrics store is called Exquiste Fabrics and the fabrics were indeed exquiste and painfully expensive. The store was kinda of small but they had extensive collection of fabric that included: imported fabrics from all over the world, couture fabrics from desingers such as Vera Wang, DKNY, Valentino, Gucci, there had a section of fabric that contained fabrics from previous seasons. But it was so expensive.

Imagine you see the most beautiful and softest cotton fabric that is seaform blue and lavender with orange koi fish, when you look at the price, which was $52.90 per yard to want to shank someone. I saw so many dream fabrics there, but many of them were way out of my price range.

Dream Fabric=$52.90 per yard
Budget=$150
Yardage need=3 1/2 yards
$52.90 x 3.5 yards= $185.15?! FML!!!

I didn't even add in the costs for notions. It sucks when your a student on a budget. You want to find the best looking fabric for your garments and projects but it's hard because the nice fabrics are always the most expensive and they break your budget.

Luckily, I found some nice fabric for one of my upcoming projects. The staff was very nice at the store and I walked out only spending $23.32.