Shirts and Shirting and Burda 3018

I don't follow fashion very much since I lead a casual life these days but I still like clothes and still go shopping...both snoop shopping for ideas and also will buy if something catches my fancy at a reasonable price.  One trend that I have noticed recently is a change from almost all knit tops and cardigans to a much larger proportion of woven blouses and tunics in the RTW stores I visit.  So my fashion eye gets accustomed to that and now I'm evaluating my pattern collection and resource center looking for variations for woven blouses and tunics to add to my wardrobe in 2019.  

Fabric Mart gave me a huge boost this summer when they bought out NYC's Rosen and Chadick, a much revered family store that was in business in the garment district for almost 70 years and carried beautiful high end selections.  Well, once Fabric Mart got in truckloads of their fabrics, they were determined to move it out just as quickly.  The first sale was 70% off the Rosen and Chadick prices on the bolts...then it was $3.99 a yard for everything in the store...then the sale that got me was when they dropped the price to $1.99 a yard and turned that into $1.00 a yard of you finished the bolt.  Now, as you dear readers already know, I have enough fabric to open a store of my own so I hesitated for a few minutes hours when that last sale email arrived.  But that afternoon I sidled up to Mr. Lucky, asked if he wanted to find a golf course to play near Sinking Spring, PA and we all drove up the next morning in under two hours. 
Once I started shopping the retail store sale, my Virginia sewing friends and I were texting pictures and requests while they were at their monthly sewing guild gathering.  I pulled out bolts of these smooth, elegant shirting fabrics, sent the photo and wanted to know which ones they wanted.  The next text said ALL.  And so that's what I did...kept pulling one beautiful bolt after another of shirting fabrics that sold from $25-59 per yard and took the whole bolt.  

There were a few knits, some lovely stretch wovens

The Fabric Mart staff saw Lucky in the car and insisted that he come in to visit and approve my selections

and it all ended up in the back of the car for the drive back to Baltimore...I think 223 yards worth.

A few days later one of my sewing friends drove up so I could hand off the goods (sounds like a drug transaction, doesn't it, and in some ways it is, isn't it?!) and she challenged us to meet at the end of the month and show off what we had made.  Darn it, we were having so much fun laughing about our mutual love for fabric/bargains on that meet up day that I didn't take any pictures of their lovely creations.  I did sew pillowcases from one of the fabrics just so I could enjoy that cool, silky cotton in the summer heat.   And I finished this blouse in time using Burda 3018 that both Kenneth King and Sarah Veblen had helped me refine previously in the late spring. 

I took those stripes and played with them a little and I'm happy with how the shirt looks and, because of that special fabric, how it feels especially in the heat we are having.

There are a few more woven tops that I've been fitting this summer so I can expand the TNT pattern collection and maybe use more of these lovely shirtings while wovens are still in style.
Here's hoping you are enjoying finding new fabrics and new styles this season.