blossoms, sewing (and a snoozing cat)

The blossoms on the old plum trees in the backyard tell me that Spring is here, even though it's still mighty chilly, and Zero (below) doesn't seem ready to shed her winter coat, or dispense with her woolly blanket (or Jack's prewarmed legs for that matter).

Still, Spring brings with it the promise that warmer weather is on its way and that always gets me thinking about sewing. So I gave myself a fixed budget of $400 for my summer wardrobe, and then spent a large chunk of it buying gorgeous Japanese fabric from Miss Matatabi. She has a huge range of designs to choose from and the fabric only took three days to reach me from Tokyo, which was very impressive.

 I love this sketchy hill print by Nani Iro

I was obviously in a geometric frame of mind when I chose these fabrics! Now I'll need to give some thought to what I plan to sew with them. I'm thinking skirts and dresses in simple shapes and lines, and I've bought a big roll of brown paper so that I can design my own patterns and see what happens. Exciting!