Emma Pillsbury Goes Fabric Shopping

I hope you don't get sick of me prattling on about my new style inspiration, Emma Pillsbury of the TV show Glee. As I wrote last week, I became so obsessed with a particular outfit of Emma's that I've made it my personal mission to recreate it for myself.

Here's the outfit on my muse:

As you can see, it's a black and white print blouse with an orange pencil skirt. In inimitable Emma Pillsbury style, she manages to pull off TWO bows on one outfit! There's one on the blouse and one on the skirt. My bow-wearing game isn't quite up to that level, so I'm going to omit the blouse bow.

First I had to choose my patterns. For the blouse, I found this lovely vintage pattern from this fab Etsy seller. Isn't the v-neck in the front perfect?

I'm not quite decided on my skirt pattern yet, but I'm thinking about the BurdaStyle Jenny skirt. I would make the simple one on the left (but making the waistband a little slimmer) and then adding a self-drafted bow. The second version has a bow already, but it's a sash, not a sewn-on embellishment.

Next, I summoned my inner Emma and took her fabric shopping! I decided on a simple black and white polka dot rayon for the blouse.
The skirt fabric was the tough part. I first fell in love with a vivid orange wool double crepe at B&J. The price tag? A whopping $82.95 a yard. Now, you all know I have expensive taste in fabric and I briefly considered it, but I knew I could find something just as lovely (if not a double crepe) for a reasonable price.

And I did! At New York Elegant Fabric, I found this lovely wool boucle:

It's a reddish orange, and it clocked in at $34.99 a yard. Not exactly cheap, but since I needed very little it wasn't too bad. Especially when you consider what I might have paid ready-to-wear for this skirt!

I want to both underline and line this skirt. I picked up a Bemberg rayon for the lining and a silk organza for the underlining.

And there are the components of my master plan, readers! What do you think?