Gorgeous!

Beautiful blue skies! Warmest it's been in sooooo long.

Had a great time out shopping today! I finally, finally, finally found the perfect fabric for a new gown: black cotton velvet!!! I am sooooo excited!!!!! It was normally $10.49/yard, but I had a 40% off coupon, and a gift card. I wasn't going to use black, but the only other color they had in the cotton was marroon or bright red (I prefer the red I used in my last gown, can't stand the reds they had). And, the more I thought of it, the more the idea of using the black grew on me.

I bought 8 yards of it, and am going to make a gown with a doublet-style bodice. I am going to use the rust colored douponi silk fabric that I found last fall for a set of sleeves and a forepart. In addition, I can also wear all of my other sets of sleeves and foreparts with it, too. I am going to stick with black braid trims, and just layer the trims like crazy to get a lot of texture. For the sleeves, I am going to braid long strips of the douponi, and have the strips be trim on the sleeves.

okay, gotta go get out my sketchbook - don't want to lose these ideas! I only hope I have enough of the douponi... it was orgininally a set of curtains I found on clearance at Walmart, so I can't get any more of it than what I already have.

I'm so excited that I was laughing on the way out to the car!