Well, of course the colors are all wrong (on the plaid at the top the grays are lighter, and the bottom is olive, black, and teal squiggles) but here they are, the fun fabrics I bought last week. After I had scanned them I realized that maybe the store had already done the work for me and put them on their site but no such luck. Either that or what I call "plaid" is not what they call "plaid."

But hey, aren't these cute? The top fabric is a mid-weight summer fabric with a slight slub to it — perfect dress weight. The bottom is a light corduroy, very shallow wale, almost babywale. I'm pretty sure I'm making a skirt out of it, as I just have never warmed much to corduroy dresses. I think my mother was frightened by a corduroy jumper when she was pregnant with me.

Sometimes I think finding great fabric is both the best and the worst part of sewing for yourself. Spending hours in the fabric store rummaging around can turn up amazing treasures, or it can be an exercise in deep frustration. If you want something highly specific — like one fabric I've been looking for now for many a long year, a midweight cotton in sky blue with a white fluffy cloud print, like a Magritte background with no SILVER GILT on it (my clouds don't need silver linings!), or the deep chocolate brown silk with dark yellow and green gingko leaves that I fantasize about on a monthly basis — well, god help you, my child. If you need a specific color to match something else, if you have a tremendous need for polka dots of a particular size (and if you want to see someone squirt coffee out their nose, walk into a Manhattan fabric store while heavily pregnant and say you're looking for fabric with fist-sized polka dots), if you need fabric in an exact weight, there will be a gaping void where the objects of your desire should be. If you walk in not needing anything specific, the fabric gods will open their arms to you and rain down endless possibilities. It makes it hard to plan, but it makes it easy to be surprised. And as I get older I find I enjoy a good surprise more than I love it when a plan comes together.