Dresses...Ta da!

I know each and every person who reads this blog has been on the edge of the seat waiting to see the completed fairy dress. So, without further ado, here it is!

This is the front. Remember, I copied the bodice of a dress Nora has that fits her well. Also remember that my sewing skills are borderline acceptable, so the fact that I even attempted this, much less succeeded, is nothing short of miraculous. Needless to say, I am pretty proud of myself.

The bodice fabric is from the same line as the skirt fabric, but it isn't the exact same blue. So, to tie it all together, I made my own bias tape out of the leftover skirt fabric (can you believe I did that?) and sewed it around the arm holes and neck line. It really did bring everything together.

Here is the back of the dress. See the buttons? On Friday I went to my friend Tracy's house and used her machine to make 2 buttonholes. That afternoon, at home, I sewed on the two buttons. When Nora got off the bus, I gleefully held out the finally completed dress, thinking she was going to be thrilled, and she could hardly give me the time of day. For real. I finally got her to try it on, just to see if it fit, and she loved twirling in it, but she informed me it was not fancy enough to wear to a wedding. My eyes almost bugged right out of my head. I tried to explain that the very reason I made this dress, out of fabric SHE HERSELF hand selected, was for Tara and Dan's wedding. She did not care. I spent some time trying to convince her to wear it, but my pleas fell on deaf ears.

I was disappointed at first, but then I got over it. After all, she is only 6. And her view of a ball gown did not match mine. Oh well. She will wear it to places less fancy.

Also on Friday afternoon, Jim called from Midwest Vac and Sew and said my machine was done. He told me he took off all of the covers so he could watch the parts move. He oiled one part. He has no idea how or why, but it now works. He did not repair anything. He didn't see anything wrong. But it works, so that is all that matters for the moment. I am just crossing my fingers that it actually is fixed, like he somehow unwittingly unstuck a part that was sticking. Because there is nothing worse than an intermittent problem. At least he witnessed the crazy behavior with his own two eyes before the miracle fix.

So on Saturday morning/early afternoon, we ran a couple of errands as a family. Fun times! One of the stops was to pick up my machine. And who knew how important this little stop would be!

See this black dress? This is the dress I wore to the wedding. I know-I can't believe I wore that, either. I am not sure I have ever worn something quite that fancy. Even when I went to prom with Kevin, my dress was nowhere nears this fancy.

So anyhoo, my dress. Do you see that lovely satin ribbon under the bust? It's pretty wide-I am guessing about 2 inches. It goes all the way around. And its number one job is to make zipping the thing up one step below impossible.

Now, I need to clarify here that this dress fits me. It is not too small. I swear on all things holy. However, at 4:05pm, precisely 10 minutes before we were to leave for the wedding, I asked Kevin to zip me up. The zipper is on the side, and there is just no way I could contort my body to zip something up to my armpit. He was having trouble with that ribbon, so he was using much force to try to zip it. At the precise moment I opened my mouth to tell him to stop, he said something like, "OH NO!" OK, this was not my finest moment. I didn't even look at the damage. I just said something like, "I can't believe you just ripped my dress!" And I stomped up the stairs. Very adult like. But by the time I got to the top of the stairs, reason had begun to return to me. I know-I, too, was surprised this happened. I just found myself some black thread and went back downstairs. It took me about three tries to remember how to sew in a zipper, but suddenly it all came back to me and I fixed that dress all up! I was oh so proud of myself. I totally rocked that zipper foot. And then I put the dress on and we left.

Halfway there I realized how lucky this all actually was. Because clearly that zipper was not sewn in very well, and what if it had undone itself while I was dancing? That would have been a disaster. The fact that it ripped out at home was actually a blessing in disguise. And I am oh so very glad that we picked up the machine on Saturday. Otherwise I would have had to wear jeans or that green skirt with the owl patch. And I would have felt dumb. And we can't go around feeling dumb.

I do not have a photo of myself in that black dress. I will try to get one to post to prove that I wore it.