fabric frustration

[bandykullan]

I'm getting really frustrated with my attempts at finding the right fabrics for the travel gown. At the moment I'm stuck with a nice looking skirt, material for the lowest part of the sleeves and the ribbons for the drapings. I really hate living in a part of the world where I'm totally dependent on online stores, and online stores that ship within Europe at that. We have two small fabric stores here, but they only have fabric for curtains and table cloth, they usually have a shelf of "party" fabrics, meaning shiny, embroidered poly satins and organzas, I can't even find a plain satin.

Now the veil and the drapings are my latest woe. Back in June I talked to Michaela in Germany, who's made the gown, she told me she had found a perfect fabric for the veil and was going to buy it for me. Naturally when she went to do it, it was sold out. And that's how my hunt for fabric has continued. I found a nice silk crepe in what seemed to be a nice colour, of course last week when I wanted to order it, it was sold out and they now just have dark purple as a colour choice. So then I decided to go for an expensive shot silk chiffon, and it arrived yesterday. It's probably the most gorgeous fabric that I've ever bought, shimmering, but I wont be able to use it since it's too dark as well. I think I will have to give up totally on finding a shot fabric in the right colour so my choices now for the veil is

• order crinkled chiffon (minimum order 5 meters) This is the expensive choice
• order the silk crepe in natural/white and dye it myself. This is the scary option
• order a cheap poly chiffon. This is the cheap option.

The expensive option is nice, but is it worth putting a lot of money into something I know wont be perfect anyway, since it might have the base colour and texture right, but not the shot effect. The scary option is scary because I've never dyed anything with a good result. There has always been a lot of splotches and uneven stains. I don't have the equpiment for it, but I might be able to borrow that from my mother, and the fabric dyes that you find here are usually quite limited in colour. I could go for the cheap poly chiffon, have it done and then hope that one day I will find a better fabric and redo the veil and drapings. I wouldn't be happy with it, but at least I would be able to do something, at the moment I'm stuck with a nice mockup, but no fabric to do anything.

So what would you do?