An Ominous Tropical Portent

Let me start off by saying I really like Fabric.com . It's accessible, it's cheap, it's easy, there's a huge selection (even if they do sell out quickly), and I've had good experiences with the fabrics. So this is in no way targeting Fabric.com.

That said, I recently put in an order through Fabric.com. I ordered swatches for curtains and a few things in anticipation of starting one of my next projects...and I'll post pictures of that design in good time once I've gotten closer to finalization. It's going to be fluttery and white.

Tonight the order came (hooray!) and I pulled everything out happily and started oohing and aahing and then I realized that something was missing...and something else was in its place.

I ordered 3 yards of white taffeta lining for the base of my upcoming piece...which, I'll reiterate, is going to be pretty white-based.

This is what it looked like online:



And this is what it looked like when it came out of the box:



Uh...ok, I know that colors may vary due to monitor settings...but I'm pretty sure that's not white taffeta lining. No, that is the beginnings of a muumuu.

Anyone who has sewn with me (specifically Liz) knows about my muumuu track record. The very first big project that didn't involve ironing that my bosses at the costume shop gave to me was assembling a muumuu last minute from this hand painted fabric that had been flown in from Africa. (Technically it was actually a caftan...but to this day we refer to it as "the muumuu.") I was absolutely delighted to have been given a project and determined to show them that I had been learning all along that semester and had costume chops. So I ran downstairs with the pattern, laid it out carefully, and snipped all around the pattern, which detailed the shoulders and neck hole of the muumuu.
I was so proud of myself for having done this that I hurried upstairs, practically leaped into the upper shop, and displayed the tiny piece of fabric that was left, which was basically a yoke.
I've never seen my boss that close to tears before. Turns out I was only supposed to cut around three sides. And the fabric had been FLOWN IN...from AFRICA! For a show that was happening in a week! And it was HAND PAINTED! By (maybe) AFRICAN VILLAGERS... with INTERNET ACCESS, apparently!

Luckily there was just enough to try again. So in the end I didn't entirely destroy the semester musical. (I'm told the caftans were on stage for about three minutes total for one visual gag.) Though I will say that finally assembling the thing, I stitched it on the wrong side and created a fabric-filled tube instead of a flat caftan...but luckily I found a seam ripper before anyone caught me and fixed the problem.

So here was a ghost of the muumuu debacle grinning up at me from my Fabric.com box in place of the angelic white taffeta I'd ordered. Maybe it's an omen...but luckily it's an omen that I can probably ship back to Fabric.com pretty easily in exchange for that taffeta lining I want.