Fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-faa fashion

I had a dream.
I had a dream that I was in a Hollywood movie
and that I was the star of this movie.
This really blew my mind.

Or not. But I did have a dream last night. Like all dreams - or at least all of my dreams - it was fairly scrambled and bizarre. I was in a fabric store. No little JoAnn's for me, though. It was a warehouse, with an upstairs that overlooked the lower portion, with crazy notions and trims and mannequins hanging from the ceiling, and every fabric in every shade of every color imaginable. It was like Willy Wonka meets the SCRAP store in SSF. Drawers and drawers full of patterns - patterns from the 70's and patterns of obscure and useless garments. Wizened and grumpy women walking around with tape measures around their necks, grumpily doling out the locations of mysterious goods with pursed lips. And look! There is my brother-in-law, spinning tunes and harrasing me about not owning a particular track (bossy sprocket.)

I was trying to complete a project for school. Like all my dreams involving school, some enormous project is due in a day, and I've yet to start it. So here I am, frantically trying to find the supplies I need in this huge store. (By the way, do those dreams ever go away? 'Cause the whole I'm-not-gonna-graduate-from-random-school thing is getting really old. Next tape loop, please!) Not suprisingly, everything I need eludes me, and a cranky old lady keeps sending me to the wrong department. And then there was that part where the thing with the stuff happens, and the dream completely wanders off into the weeds. Which reminds me of a dream I had when I was a kid where Godzilla was chasing me down National Avenue near my granparent's house in West Allis, except I was running through invisible maple syrup and oh look there's my dentist's office!

Which is to say that the mind works in mysterious ways. And maybe I should charge admission.

But. I did actually remember at least one idea for a design from my dream when I woke up. Aaaand now I can't remember it. Fuck! *sigh* Ok, thinking on my feet....right. So, I've been thinking that A-HA! I remember! Lamb's wool. Or at least faux lamb's wool. I want to make a coat out of lamb's wool. And for some reason I was dreaming of this very fabric, which I know you can buy in fun colors. And I am also in need of a coat I can wear out that is not a) a raincoat, b) a snowboarding jacket, or c) a shapeless polar fleece jacket that Husband stole from someone in his office. Y'know, a nice coat. For an evening out. Dinner with friends. A date with your Husband (cough, cough.) That sort of thing. I was thinking I'd design something that was sort of a modern spin on a 40's style jacket. Hip length for the tall gal, thank you so much. I'll have to do a little research on the style. I can feel how I want it to look, but I can't see any specific details. Makes it a bit more challenging to make it that way, oui?

I also still want to make one of those skirts that swish around the bottom a la Morticia Addams. I'm pretty sure I know how to do it, and I just lurve the way it looks when someone walks in one of those. I saw a gal at school wearing one once, and I could not take my eyes off of it. I can only wonder what she thought I was doing.

I also have this mad dream of making a dress out of two pieces of fabric (well, maybe some sleeves. I'm not sure yet.) There are plenty of dresses out there made of just two pieces: front and back. Fine. But those dresses are all full of horizontal darts and such. What I'm imagining is starting with two rectangles, basically, and just having nothing but long - possibly even dress-length - parallel darts, evenly spaced, to give the dress its shape. Maybe darts is the wrong word. Contoured pleats maybe? Not sure. Have miniscule darts over hips (widest area.) Deepen darts as they go up and over the waist area. Darts fade out as the chest widens and fade back above bust. Darts get very tight around neck and then abruptly zoom back out, creating a blossoming-like effect. Same sort of idea below the hips, too. Long skirt. I think the effect would be really cool, especially if you could somehow highlight all the seams in a contrasting thread, or with piping or something. Or even more bizarre/fun, have the darts be on the outside. Wow! That'd actually be pretty cool, I think! Talk about texture! And to take that even one step further, you could have two layers of fabric (different colors,) sew the darts so that you caught both layers, then you could slash the top layer so that you could see the color underneath along the dart lines. And you could either slash every inch of each dart to get complete lines, or you could just sporadically slash for a different effect. Hmm, I'm thinking maybe fabric with some sort of stretch would work best...

I have no idea if this would even work. My guess is that you'd also need a very specific body type to wear this design, too. Well, a specific body type to not look ridiculous, anyhow. Maybe someday I'll make it and find out.