Aaarrgh! Fabric crisis!

I went to buy jupe and stomacher fabric today. The ones I had intended look *awful* with my fabric sample for the main gown. :( The sample arrived yesterday, and I wasn't blown away with it at the time. It's a very dull gold, almost greenish. And there isn't much of a sheen, or a colour contrast between the background and the pattern. It's a shame the sample arrived 3 days after the auction ended, and I'd already bought 15 yards of the stuff... Putting it next to the other fabrics I have in mind makes it look very blah, not at all like the elegant-yet-spectacular dress of the film.

The fabric shop do have a nice, damask, self-patterned satin back dupion. It's the right colour, very light, and its main downfalls are that the pattern is very non-period (roses), the pattern is not cream (which at least doesn't show off the roses), and it's synthetic, and looks it. Politely synthetic, but definitely synthetic. And it's much thinner than the brocade, so will need stabilising/interlining. Hmm. I did pick up 3.5 metres of satin backed crepe (again, polyester) in a pleasant cream, that I could use with either as the jupe (I wasn't sure what to do about the jupe, and this stuff was reduced and I can always make a dancing skirt out of it anyway). And I did buy half a metre of the gold-brocaded stomacher fabric, which was cheap.

So current options include:

• Go to Robert Sayles' and see if I can find a less 'glitzy' stomacher fabric that is more complementary to the brocade
• Sell the brocade, or earmark it for another project, buy the gold satin and make it in that.
• Make both. Plan to sell at least one. (This was always a possibility for the dress after it had been worn anyway). Time constraints could kick in here...
• Live with it and stop fussing. It's just a fancy dress costume.
• Give up on this idea for now and do something else. I'm starting to think that no-one's going to know who I'm dressing as anyway. Everyone (who's seen the movie) knows Elizabeth got given a dress and passed out in it, but I'm betting that most people barely remember the colour of it.

Hmm. Will stew on it a bit more. And make a mental note to myself never to make a costume replica on a short timescale unless I already have the perfect fabric to hand.