I got my skirt fabric yesterday. Here is a crappy image from the Thai Silks site:

I’ll take a better one soon; my digital camera is being flaky lately and doesn’t like me.

It’s a spring green silk organza (it’s not that far from the color of my beetle, actually) with a largish embroidered pattern of vines and roses. The embroidery colors are varigated greens and pinks. I”m plannng to do some beading, following the vines with bugle beads and putting some swarovski crystals around.

I love this fabric; I saw it a few weeks ago and took some time to think about it, and when I went back yesterday, I didn’t see the roll of it at first. I had to dig for it, panicking slightly the whole time. I finally found it, and was walking around with it looking for a coordinating fabric for the top, and one of the salespeople stopped and asked if I’d just found that. I said yes and she was surprised because someone had been in the previous day and wanted to buy all of it that they had but must not have seen that roll.

My original thought was to make the top out of one of the greens, but now I’m actually thinking of picking up one of the pinks. I know, pink and green sounds really barfy, but I think it Just Might Work in real life. Whatever I decide on for the top, I’ll bind the edge of the sheer overskirt with the same fabric. Thai Silks had a pink that Just Might Work, but I’m going to visit Stonemountain and Daughter and Poppy Fabrics today to see what they have.

I’ve settled on this for the top pattern (view C), except I’m going to cut the sleeves off at the elbow, and maybe use the sleeve cuffs on that very first pattern I posted, out of the sheer fabric. And I don’t know what I’m going to do about the buttons on the back. I’ve seen so many bad executions of back buttons, I get nervous about them. Must consult my couture books on this one. I will, of course, be throwing the pattern instructions away anyway, since I want it to be underlined and boned.

Now I just have to set up my sewing area in the new place.