Fabric shopping rocks!
Score! Even though we were shopping for the site. If you haven't made it to a JoAnn's superstore recently, you need to. Almost all of their quilt prints are $1 off including vintage prints and we found they have a huge selection of cotton solids now (it's been a while since I've been looking for solids, so if they've been there for a while, forgive me). They had a great variety of colors in Egyptian cotton (so pretty and soft!). That was $6.99/yard, but there were two other colored cotton varieties at $3.99 and $2.99/yd.
It's very hard to shop JoAnn's quilt fabrics for period prints for dresses. First, they come only as 8 yds 45" wide on a full bolt. So if you don't get a fresh bolt, you can't get enough fabric, even 8 yds is skimpy for many time periods. But we got two blue prints for our 1915 dresses, a nice brown print that was two bolts worth on one, which will fit 1860s and we have enough yardage for a hoop skirt and a child's dress! We found another 2 bolts full of fabric for the 1890s, to make a wrapper and probably a men's shirt and a kid's outfit. We also got embroidered cotton fabric for a pretty late 1910s summer dress (on that we splurged at $12.99/yd.) and two more solids for 1915 dresses a lavender and a blue green color. Plus, we picked up some men's shirtings fabrics at $1.50/yard. Yes! Probably another 20 yds total there, so lots of shirts! All in all with can fully clothe about 11 people, and about another 5-6 shirts (we have some *large* men) for just under $300! I'd say that's pretty good.
Plus, we didn't leave without getting anything for ourselves. I found a gorgeous claret colored cotton, that I think I can make into a summer walking dress. It was 108 inches, but only had 4 1/2 yds on it. Cost me about $35, but I think I can squeeze out a whole outfit. I hope. I don't know if it will be a polonaise, or an underskirt, overskirt and jacket. Maybe some of it will be used to make my daughters polonaise for this summer. It was really pretty and spoke to me. Our period clothing coordinator picked up some black trim for an 1860s dress she's doing for herself. Her first dress to make, though, is an 1830s high gown.
Speaking of fabric, does anyone know much about "cloth of gold" or "cloth of silver?" Having read so much about Henry VIII lately, I've become fascinated with the clothing and apparently he and his queens used that cloth for vestments quite often. Could one even find that today? I figure it might be similar to tissue lame, but I can't be sure.