Yay or Nay?

I’m finishing up stitching the binding on the boy quilt for our two-year-old, and starting to daydream about my next sewing project.  I’m really, really in the mood to make some clothes, fueled in large part by the blistering success of the recent Sewing Kids Clothes e-course, no doubt.  I’m not quite sure about my next fabric choices, though, and finding myself–quite characteristically–hemming and hawing over which yardage to pair with which silhouette.  This can go on for me for years.  Decades.  Don’t believe me?  Oh, foolish one, the stories I could tell.

One of the constantly fabulous ladies at the shop brought in copies of the new Lisette line of patterns from Simplicity.  Been wondering why you can’t get fabulous patterns for yourself like the Oliver + S designs for kids?  Now you can.  Lisette patterns are designed by Liesl Gibson, founder of Oliver + S, and are completely delightful.  I have three of the four of them, and am thinking I’ll have a semi-stalker all-Lisette wardrobe for Quilt Market this year.  Look out, Liesl!

From this particular pattern, I’m especially enamored of the little sailor-styled pants:

Aren’t they totally darling?  I love the clean, chic grey she’s got going on in the sample shot (could that be one of the chambrays from their new fabric line??), but I’m really wanting to go with a red mattress ticking that’s been calling my name for months:

Something’s holding me back.  It seems sorta nautical/Cape Cod, but maybe it’s trying too hard?  Even with little black buttons?  I’m just not sure yet.

I’ve also been toying with this one:

I am in dire need of a loose, comfortable dressier-but-not-too-dressy pant to wear to teach classes this summer.  I love the wide leg here (although the rise is much, much too high for someone as short-torsoed as I am, and I don’t usually do pleats).  I’m wanting to pair it with this linen blend from my stash:

I have 4.5 yards of this.  Wanna know how I know?  It’s not because I have the receipt.  If you thought I was joking when I said I can spend decades working out what fabric to pair with what pattern, this is a case in point.  This has been in my stash since MINIMUM 2003, and when I pulled it out just now, it had a tag pinned to it with a pattern number (which is now out of print and the original of which was destroyed in our flood in 2009) along with the number of yards.  And I remember writing that note–it replaced an earlier note, when the initial pattern I’d planned for this didn’t get sewn up and then was hopelessly out of date when I got back around to the fabric.  Oy.  And now?  The problem isn’t the pattern.  It’s the color.  I’m wondering if the color is a little bit ten years ago.  You know, since I bought the fabric ten years ago.

Maybe I should remember the lesson the flood taught me, when I watched all my delicious wools and boucles and silks wadded up and muddy: use it now, don’t overthink it, they’ll always make more fabric.  I don’t feel so attached to either one of these fabric that I’d feel any sense of loss if these projects didn’t turn out.  So other than the cost of my time, what’s the risk?  Carpe stitchum!

OK, I may have convinced myself.  I’ll let you know next week.