Hi, my name is Kat, and I'm a Fabriholic...

I got back today from ferrying another load of my possessions from my parents basement in Wisconsin to my apartment in Washington. A good amount of those possessions are fabrics and with the return of my nice camera I decided to do an inventory of the fabrics I've been accumulating.

(Just a few of my favorites)

As you may have noticed by my "If You Find Yourself In" series, I find fabric stores, or just go peruse the red tag section at Jo-anne, and fabrics jump out at me. Cry out to me. BEG ME to take them home! I'm pretty sure I'm the Fabric Whisperer-- these fabrics have stories they want to tell and they come to me and trust me to release their spirit by realizing their story. It would be callous and cruel of me to deny them. Many times the fabrics I get aren't for any specific project when I find them but as other fabrics find me they meet each other in my studio and discover their destinies are intertwined!

Here's what's come together so far.

Sketch for a Venetian Courtesan gown:

 The fabrics that inspire:

 Copper organza, gauzy cotton with gold pin striping, tan/goldish damask, beaded embellishment, salmony/coppery silk with mettalic copper flecks, tan/goldish embroidered silk.

 A close up of the detail on the cotton for the camicia.

Pretty low on the priority list but I'm in love with the scheme!

Next:

Sketch for another Elizabethan set, possibly Radclyffe, but possibly not...

 Changeable teal/mauve silk chiffon, bronze and black ribbed heavyweight silk, mauve silk, teal silk, mauve Italian cotton velvet, antique cold cording.

The most gorgeous silk chiffon, it has such a beautiful hand. Divine.
Not sure where in the line up this one comes but I'm also very excited for putting these fabrics together!

No sketch for this one yet. I don't usually go for such primary color combos but I found the yellow fabric and just had to have it. Already had the red velveteen and that's black silk organza.

 Then I remembered the stripe fabric I found in Phoenix last month. (which is actually a blue/brown/red/gold stripe fabric but I'm going to cut out the blue part and just use the red/gold/brown bits.

Also undetermined priority level.

And lastly for now, it's my goal to make an Henrician gown so I can go play with courts at Henry VIII based faires. I'm not a big fan of the look of that period but I finally came up with something I'm happy with and the fabrics are delicious as well.

Airplane drawing, hence the wrong paper. Funny story but the idea for the trim overlay on the forepart was inspired by a fellow flight attendant's shoe straps. I had to sketch it out right away!

 I want to use the teal velveteen as the main fabric for skirt and bodice/upper sleeve. The strawberry-dun shell patterned fabric with be the forepart and under sleeve with a trim overlay and beading. The strawberry-dun silk will be the under portion of the bodice and the drapey-over hanging part of the sleeve.

This one is pretty high on the priority list as I'd like to be able to wear it to Henrician faires as they come up. I can always wear an Elizabethan gown but I really like to immerse and play so I'll be happier in the appropriate period wear.

I also have one Elizabethan dress in progress that will probably be the next project I work on, but I'll save pictures of that for another time.

Woohoo fabric!