Still alive!!

Here's the part where, if I had readers, I'd apologize to them. I have not been eaten by dragons, or fallen into a volcano. Here's what actually happened.

Boyfriend and I go on a big vacation once a year. This year we left Dec 17 and returned Jan 6th. We went to Florida and New Orleans, and a blast was had. HOWEVER- I just had to complicate things and take on 5 days of shows in the two weeks before we left. 4 of them in the same week. I know, I am insane. To top it all off, I'd wanted to make some clothing for the trip before we left. Hah! Luckily I had Boyfriend and best friend Jamie talk some sense into me. (Often as I was sewing for shows until 3 in the morning.) The shows were great, with one exception that was still a learning experience, so it all ended well.

While finishing the last week of our trip in Nola, I got bronchitis. Sigh. Then, after a 16 hour drive from there back to Chicago, Boyfriend got the Death Flu. His fever got up to scary levels. This dragged on with both of us sick for another week.

On top of everything else, I've been sitting around wallowing in depression since then. I have clinical depression, and winters/post holidays are really hard for me. Really, all I have accomplished since recovering from being sick is sewing a shirt (Simplicity 1941), hanging some wall storage in my craft room, and going to a knitting group.

 I actually made a muslin. Shit got serious.

 I was having fitting issues in the back, but needed to let out side seams anyway, which fixed it.

Finished shirt with awkward face!

So I'm done with all that and ready to get back to our regularly scheduled programming. I'm afraid I rather botched my goal already by having to buy warm weather clothing before our trip, but then again, it's my challenge and I can cheat if I want to! Actually, I've decided that I'd move the challenge from November thru November to a January start. Setting that goal for myself when I had so much work to do was not realistic. My schedule is much more open now, so it's time to get serious.

In pursuit of that goal, here's what's going on! I went through my patterns and picked a good selection of items to be "top priority." Now, I'm going through my fabric to see what I have material for and what I need to look for.

These are the fabrics I don't have projects for yet.

Here we have five yards of poly charmeuse, three of a linen-look fabric (or maybe linen blend) and invisible due to it's blackness, 6 yards of crinkle cotton.

Two yards each of a one way stretch double knit in two awesome colors. Perhaps a pencil skirt ala Suburbs Mama?

My big splashy prints, starting with 4.5 yards of a heavier silky floral, 1 yard and some change of a thin silky butterfly print, and 3 of another linen-ish fabric.

This DIVINE 100% wool pin stripe, about 2.5 yards

And this oddly somber but lovely floral medium weight silky something, about 3 yards.

Now on to the stuff I'm planning! I'm sorry if you're sick of looking at pictures, already.

I'm thinking the plain front 3/4 sleeve option

I can't decide which pattern would look best with this amazing wool check

Just had to show you the full awesomeness of this gradient print. It's a light weight silky that I'll probably use with the pattern below

And use the same pattern again for this insanely bright sheer. It's such a busy pattern that I want to keep the actual dress as simple as possible.

So, what do we think?