Stripes will be the death of me......

I seriously dislike stripes.....I say that marveling at a group of people who are discussing how excited they are about this week's Project Run and Play challenge that is all about stripes and polka dots.   I have never used a real stripe in a design I have done, stripes scare me to death.  I have adorable striped fabric that sits in my stash and never gets used.

See I love the look of stripes, but am a bit of a perfectionist.  I say this with the realization that I am a perfectionist far beyond my sewing ability.  I just keep hearing Joanna Coles telling the designers on Project Runway that their seems must be perfect.  It haunts me in my nightmares.

(taken from her Twitter Feed)

So of course instead of just picking one of those striped fabrics I have laying around for this week, I decide to go all out.....face my fears.   I decide to make my own stripes. 

I got seriously inspired by this dress below that I found on pinterest.   I loved the way the stripes went different directions.  At this point I would like to cite a source but the picture said uploaded by user so you get what you get.  

I decided to do a wide stripe and wanted to make it out of red and white sweatshirt material.   I went to the goodwill planning to upcycle.   They had NOTHING!  I mean really, the goodwill and not even one lousy sweatshirt!  I looked at the store and sweatshirts were like seven bucks a piece (this is why I buy nothing on season), finally I went to the fabric store to find sweatshirt material.  One look at the price and I laughed and walked away.  

I remembered that I had some fleece leftover from my son's halloween costume in black, and picked up some matching red.  

I made my stripes, pressing the seems and topstitching every piece.  Then I played around putting the stripes diferent directions to fill the dress shape I was trying to make.

Finally, I stitched the dress together and discovered something, the fleece was WAY too thick and this was going to be an epic fail!  Back to the drawing board!

I think I have a plan, I will let you know how it works out.