Creative Seduction

Whenever I enter a fabric store, I'm seized with a kind of creative seduction. As my fingers touch the fabrics my mind leaps with pictures of garments that could be created from them. The colours seduce, the textures tantalize, and I'm lost. After a tactile trip around the store, I usually head for the pattern desks. After all, by now I've already sewn several garments in my mind, I only need to figure out the fabric requirements before my credit card comes out.

Generally, there are patterns on sale - too good a sale, naturally, to not buy. So I flip expectantly through the pages, fairly salivating over the drawings of thin, fashionable women in oh-so-glamorous outfits. As I pull the pattern packages from the drawers I'm calculating the cost. When there is a fabric sale the cost is so little relative to buying a ready-made garment that my heart is beginning to beat faster in anticipation of my new clothes.

Of course, there is never just one fabric that calls to me. There is never just one outfit I imagine. You see, I have a picture-producing mind and all it takes is the touch of a fabric against my fingers, or the sight of a certain colour to send it spinning into fantasies of fashion. So my hands fill with patterns as I mentally count the cost. As one hour stretches into two and the list of new outfits mounts, a sense of realism finally begins to seep in.

I remember that I have a closet at home still filled with virgin fabrics, the results of trips just like this one through the fabric store doors. There is that rayon with the splashy red lilies for the dress with the red jacket to match. And the black stretch cotton that I already have cut out waiting for me to paint on before I sew it. Then I have the cream sheer crinkle to make an elegant over-blouse. Oh, and stuff I bought for a black dress, with some pink chiffon with grey flowers for a kimono-style jacket. I got a great deal on 100% linen last week and bought three metres without knowing just what I'd make but knowing that, no matter what, it will be gorgeous.

As these memories come to me, I return the patterns I've pulled to their respective drawers, give the fabrics I've fallen in love with a last caress, and with a resolute raise of my chin, head for the door. With renewed fervor for the projects waiting at home, I leave.

When I walk through the door of my sewing room, I'm again seized with this creative gluttony. Now my creative cravings can be satisfied by the act of actually making something. Perhaps next time you see me, I'll be wearing a new outfit that I sewed myself after having satiated my rapacious hunger for creating.