Mauricio Parra, the producer and emcee of the Cherry Pop Burlesque show in Madison, Wisconsin, asks:

I have been scouring the web for a silky/shiny fabric with cherries on a black background that would be suitable for making a tie/bow-tie/pocket square etc. I bought a cherry tie online that turned out to be made from a cotton print that wasn't very saturated and just looks — crappy. In fact, cotton prints are the only cherry fabrics I've been able to find so far. Heck, I'd be willing to cut up some silky cherry pajamas if I could find them. One of our cast members has some but won't let me near them. 😉

Any ideas?

Cherry fabric is very near to my heart — I must have yards, but it's all cotton prints, not the shiny silky fabric you'd need to make a great tie.

You really have two options: call around, or DIY. I'd call the big fabric stores first: Vogue Fabrics in Chicago, Britex in San Francisco (I ordered some very nice cherry print from them five or six years ago, but it was cotton on a white background) or G Street in Rockville, Maryland. You might also want to grab a copy of Threads magazine and start calling the stores that advertise in that mag … I'd start by asking if they have any of the cherry-print black silk that Nicole Miller put out a few years ago. I'm still kicking myself for not buying some of that.

Of course you also want to set up an eBay search alert that will email you whenever someone lists silk cherry fabric.

As for DIY, if you know a good graphic artist, you could get a cherry print made just for you, and fabric either silkscreened locally or printed up at www.my-fabrics.com. (If you use my-fabrics, let me know, I've been dying to try them out.)

Also, Dharma Trading Co. sells silk tie blanks, pocket square blanks, etc. that could be painted!

Any Dress A Day readers have leads, or want to part with some of their stash?

By the way, the picture is for some black cherry-print denim, on sale on eBay for the next several days. Click on the pic to go to the listing. Note: the coin in the photo is a QUARTER. Those cherries are HUGE! Happy bidding!