My summer top -> Winter top!

 

The other day I was rooting through the closet looking for something new to wear when I found the yellow plaid shirt. I put it on and was pretty thrilled with the summer-turned-winter outfit and then went online to see the pictures from when I posted it. Summer Top Week '08? WAAH?? Can it really be that old? The problem with having a blog where you catalog all the things you make is that you always know exactly how old your clothes are. This top is now 2.5 years old but I'll wager y'all have much older stuff in your closet, am I right? Thought so. And the thing is, I do still really like the collar, it's pretty classic, and man I was ahead of the times with the whole yellow trend which has hit it's stride of late, so I still think this makes a rather lovely outfit for winter.

looks nice w/ cozy shawl collared sweater!

This shirt was made with a designer cotton which I have never been able to find online and am pretty sure is no longer available. But that's not really important, what I want to point out is how well this shirt is standing up over time. The fabric is just as nice today as the day I bought it. And this may seem obvious to some but I'm not sure that everyone knows this so I'm just going to say it again: there's a pretty big difference in quality when it come to buying high quality designer fabrics and the stuff they sell at the major fabric chains. I know because I've made alot of clothing with both, and guess which clothes are already pilly or cut up into cleaning rags? $4/yard or $6/yard seemed like a bargain at the time but it's just a waste now that I can't wear the stuff I made out of it anymore. Another thing I've noticed lately is that the quality of many of the fabrics at JoAnn seems to be getting worse (has anyone else noticed this with their fleece? I can't even stand to touch it lately...it makes my hair stand on end. And don't even get me started on the flannel...).

would have been a pretty fine picture had it not been so blurry. meh.

I make a point of mentioning this because I've just recently become aware of the fact that worldwide cotton shortages are already causing increases in the price of designer cottons (thanks to Deborah for writing such a nice economics-for-dummies post about this) and I just want to make sure I say that I for one am not going to be a whiner if the price of my designer fabric goes up. That's all.