How hard is it...???

...to find a decent period-esque brocade or jacquard that isn't RED?! Honestly!! I don't want a red gown, thanks kindly!

Anyway, you may wish to know the source of my frustration- I went over to Joann fabrics today on a quest to both find my pattern and perhaps find that perfect fabric for the gown. Well- one thing was accomplished. I did find my pattern, but it's $10 there.... Why pay that when I could get it cheaper on ebay, right? So, we'll see. I think I made a $4 mistake by bidding for a pattern that, upon closer inspection, looks to be the upper size bracket, which I'm a wee bit too small for. I figure I'll make a size 14 (*sigh*- so big!), but still.

So, Joann's was... uhm... We'll start by saying that they had a far better selection of upholstery fabrics than Hobby Lobby- what a surprise. However, just when I had thought I had found something that would be perfect, a look at the underside revealed a tragic revelation- a plastic-y backing. *sigh* Why?! Oh well, I thought, surely there would be something just as nice....

Wrong. My original intention of a deep blue gown with silver underskirt seems to be dashed for the moment, since there seems to be a profound lack of navy blue upholstery material. I may have to switch to green with a light blue underskirt: my only hesitation with that is the simple revelation that, like Anne Boleyn, I've got a more olive complexion and therefore wouldn't look good in all the gaudy pastels that would be so terribly prevalent in the Tudor court. Deep blue, I found out through research, would have been a color of nobility for certain, since the plant that was used to make the blue dye was rare, and only the nobility could afford cloth that was dipped more (which would consequently make the clothing darker). So- since I certainly don't wish to portray myself as so highborn as that, I may take my other path- green. Since green is my color, I could really have a ball with it. Which poses the other problem- uhm, silver anyone? The common accessory color for green is often gold, but again, cloth of gold or anything that had a gold hue was, back in the day, *made* of gold, therefore costly beyond measure for all but a select of the nobility.

So- with that little history lesson over, we get back to today: essentially, no luck. My current intention is to go and do a little research into what appropriate patterns would've been in the Renaissance times and go oggle at more lovely costumes. I know- a big disappointment, right? Not.

Until then!