Wonky fabric -grrrrrrr!

I've been busy making up this Burda dress over the last few days. I like the simple style and knew that I had some suitable fabrics in my stash that I could use - making it eligible for the SPR Stash 2009 contest as well. Both fabrics are light cottons,in pretty much the same colour. The first has an embroidery anglaise pattern all over it :

The second fabric had simpler lines of flowers embroidered across it , except for the richly detailed hem , which was the whole reason I wanted to buy both fabrics in the first place.

I brought this fabric about 3 or 4 years ago from Homecraft Textile in Mirrabooka (western Australia), and all I can think is that I must have been pretty distracted- or a little green in the fabric buying department- as I never noticed that the pattern had been stitched on slightly off grain. You can see below how crooked it was at the selvages, the blue lines are the embroidery pattern, the yellow is the pricking line on the selvage and the black is the fabric edge. There is about 2 centimetres difference between one end and the other:

Luckily the actual pattern itself was still relatively even spaced so I cut my pattern pieces using that as a guide, and ignoring the selvage. I know it means that the dress will probably be a bit off grain, but to tell the truth I am not even sure if it will work or suit me, and the fabric was pretty cheap. I figure I haven't got much to lose! :)

The upside of synthetics...

Well after whinging about how cheap looking the black fabric that I made my Kwik Sew 3240 skirt from was, I actually have something good now to say- it doesn't crease!!!
A last minute decision on what to wear to work (hmm what doesn't need ironing?) saw me grab my newly finished KS skirt off the hanger -the skirt that was only going to be for going out "emergencies" (as I was sure the fabric looked too cheap, would be too hot , the lining made it too boofy etc...).
I teamed this with my "nice" shop-brought cotton blouse (standard office wear). By the time I had driven the 15 minutes or so it takes from home to work the "nice" shirt transformed from neatly pressed to "I slept in this overnight and didn't bother to get changed this morning" creasing, while my homemade skirt emerged from the car looking cool, calm and collected with nary a crease in sight!
The skirt fabric stayed crease- free all day, with only very feint wrinkles by the time I got home. I think I could have easily changed tops and wore this out again to dinner without a worry- if I had to.
Surprisingly given the fact that I was wearing 2 layers of synthetic fabric (with the skirt being lined) and that it was about 35 deg Celsius outside (95 degrees Fahrenheit), I didn't feel hot at all while wearing it. I think maybe this is due to the "swirly" design of the skirt (lotsa ventilation there !) plus the fact that my fashion fabric was quite light and slightly open weave.
Soooo after all this rambling what do I REALLY have to say? If it wasn't for being in the Stash 2009 contest I may never have used this fabric :it was a remnant, looked (to me) quite "cheap", I got it for nothing with a bundle of other fabric and was very synthetic. I probably would have run out and brought more fabric rather than think of using this !
However being in the contest I had to use what was in my stash and -wanting to make something I "needed"- decided a black skirt was the go. This being the only piece of black fabric in my stash big enough I decided to use it because at least then it wouldn't be in my stash any longer!
I am glad now I used this fabric as it has given me a new appreciation for a fabric type (synthetics) that up until now I have mostly avoided in favour of cotton / cotton blends.
In future I will be taking a closer look at synthetic blend fabrics when buying fabric and judging them on their merits (not creasing, new technology) not just dismissing them outright.
Lesson learnt :)