XIV.
Été: être pour quelques jours
le contemporain des roses;
respirer ce qui flotte autour
de leurs âmes écloses. (…)
Les Roses, Rainer Maria Rilke

“So what do you want to do?” my friend asked after I had arrived in Helsinki.

If we’re being honest it, it was clear to everyone what I wanted to do. Yarn and fabric are my vices, and I love to indulge in them. Of course I wanted to go to Menita and browse their selection of Finnish and Scandinavian yarn. Of course I wanted to go to Eurokangas ever since she gave me fabric from there as a gift for my birthday. Discovering the crafty goodness of a city has become an essential part of sightseeing to me.

Eurokangas was everything I ever dreamt of in a fabric store. It’s huge. There are all kinds of fabrics for every style and every mood: understated, romantic, bold, geometrical, playful, funny … it’s wonderful. They also have a large section where you can buy fabric by the kilo. You can imagine I wasn’t able to leave empty-handed – I snatched up this lovely rose print and another fabric for a bargain! I’d been ogling this print on Dawanda, thinking it’d make for a wonderfully flowy, romantic skirt. A skirt that could be featured in the poem of a sick, melancholic poet … didn’t I find the perfect fabric in the end?

With a print this large, I didn’t want to use a complex pattern whose details would only get lost in a sea of roses. I selected two of my go-to pattern pieces, the yoke also used for my Casino skirt and the skirt pieces from this Burda pattern (blogged examples here and here).

This is not a very practical garment. It crinkles and creases like nobody’s business. It’s very prone to Marilyn accidents. But boy do I love it. It’s so pretty and feminine! The fabric is very soft, too, which feels just lovely on your skin. It might not be a sensible item, but it makes me feel wonderful. What a joy to be able to wear this delicate, ephemeral, utterly impractical thing! Something that makes you feel good about yourself is really the best possible addition to any wardrobe, don’t you think?

(Lucky me, I still have enough to squeeze a dress out of it, too! I’m thinking either this really cute and simple Named dress or something ultra feminine like these Burda patterns: 1, 2, 3. What do you think?)