Why am I sitting on the couch unpicking this dress for the hundreth time? There is nothing on all 2,000 channels on cable. Seriously, I can choose between Tuna Wranglers and The Real Housewives of Somewhere. I have almost blinded myself like five times. Note to self, stop trying to scratch your eye while holding a seam ripper. Mostly, I blame my sister. Yeah, the same sister that I was just congratulating in the last post. She deserves it. I shouldn't be mad at her for making me perfect this dress (I use the term "perfect" lightly, very, lightly.) Afterall, she has been through a lot...including forcing me to give her shots in the bum every night that she was here. Do you know how hard it was to post about her coming to visit me and NOT be able to publicly pat myself on the back for administering nightly shots into someone's skin?! I was proud of myself for trying something new. She also is responsible for me making this darn dress. You see, she inspires me to sew so while she was here she helped me pick out patterns and fabric. She even helped me cut the patterns out but then had to go back home with her husband while I was left holding directions that might as well have been written in Elfin. I had better wear it more than once. I am hoping that more people ask me where I got it from than if I made it. Is that wrong? I mean, I want the credit for making it, but only if they think it is cute and also as long as they are not saying "where did you get that?" in a way that would make me feel like poking myself in the eye with the a fore mentioned seam ripper.
I heard this expression today and decided that I needed to use it right away. I need to tell someone that they are the bomb.com. I am so hip, and with it. I think I will say it to the next person who calls me on the phone. I hope it's not someone asking me for a donation because I don't want to give them the wrong idea, like I want to help their organization or something.
I just had nachos for dinner at 9:45pm. I washed them down with some limeade and I am contemplating retrieving my hoarded treats from their hiding place in the office. The hiding place is so obvious. My children are sooo non-observant. But I still count the number of 100 Grands left in the jar, just in case. There are 13 left...Make that 12.
Seriously, this dress. I have spent so many hours on it now, I am not sure that I even like the fabric anymore. I have finished it like four times. But I keep returning to its imperfections like the dog to its vomit, or rather like a Mom to her hidden candy stash. I have unpicked and redone the sleeves, bodice AND skirt (some of them multiple times.) I am getting ready to sew on trim because while taking the waist up two inches last night I made it a teensy weensy too short. Drat. And now, the collar, it would be the only thing I wasn't completely satisfied with. However, the collar required a skype session with Carrie after e mailing her the directions so she could very literally talk me through it. Do I really want to chance being able to do it a second time? Eh, why not? I always take Carrie's advice, she is smart. OK, usually I take her advice. I just dyed my hair a shade or two lighter because I can't forget that she told me two years ago that I shouldn't really be this dark. It was done lovingly I can assure you. And guess what? She was right, even though I loved it dark I need it a tad lighter to hide those emerging grays a bit better. It is beginning to sound like I am just giving her a hard time but I promise that's not it. I just have a tendency to start blaming other people for my problems, especially when it gets late at night and I have just eaten my weight in nachos and hidden treats.
Maybe I will show you my dress when it is done, but only if you promise to ask where I got it from.
Post Edit: I kid you not. This is where I am at. And this is after my second trip to the fabric store in one day to get more of the same trim that I needed. What was that old saying...measure twice, cut once? How about, measure at all. I am a doofus. Where is the seam ripper? I'm goin for the eyes....
And just in case you were wondering, it doesn't look like a polygamist dress...at least, it looks less like a polygamist dress than it did before I changed the sleeves...and the waist. Not there is anything wrong with polygamist dresses...it's just not me really. That, and I can't get my bangs to do that crazy wave thing.
I heard this expression today and decided that I needed to use it right away. I need to tell someone that they are the bomb.com. I am so hip, and with it. I think I will say it to the next person who calls me on the phone. I hope it's not someone asking me for a donation because I don't want to give them the wrong idea, like I want to help their organization or something.
I just had nachos for dinner at 9:45pm. I washed them down with some limeade and I am contemplating retrieving my hoarded treats from their hiding place in the office. The hiding place is so obvious. My children are sooo non-observant. But I still count the number of 100 Grands left in the jar, just in case. There are 13 left...Make that 12.
Seriously, this dress. I have spent so many hours on it now, I am not sure that I even like the fabric anymore. I have finished it like four times. But I keep returning to its imperfections like the dog to its vomit, or rather like a Mom to her hidden candy stash. I have unpicked and redone the sleeves, bodice AND skirt (some of them multiple times.) I am getting ready to sew on trim because while taking the waist up two inches last night I made it a teensy weensy too short. Drat. And now, the collar, it would be the only thing I wasn't completely satisfied with. However, the collar required a skype session with Carrie after e mailing her the directions so she could very literally talk me through it. Do I really want to chance being able to do it a second time? Eh, why not? I always take Carrie's advice, she is smart. OK, usually I take her advice. I just dyed my hair a shade or two lighter because I can't forget that she told me two years ago that I shouldn't really be this dark. It was done lovingly I can assure you. And guess what? She was right, even though I loved it dark I need it a tad lighter to hide those emerging grays a bit better. It is beginning to sound like I am just giving her a hard time but I promise that's not it. I just have a tendency to start blaming other people for my problems, especially when it gets late at night and I have just eaten my weight in nachos and hidden treats.
Maybe I will show you my dress when it is done, but only if you promise to ask where I got it from.
Post Edit: I kid you not. This is where I am at. And this is after my second trip to the fabric store in one day to get more of the same trim that I needed. What was that old saying...measure twice, cut once? How about, measure at all. I am a doofus. Where is the seam ripper? I'm goin for the eyes....
And just in case you were wondering, it doesn't look like a polygamist dress...at least, it looks less like a polygamist dress than it did before I changed the sleeves...and the waist. Not there is anything wrong with polygamist dresses...it's just not me really. That, and I can't get my bangs to do that crazy wave thing.
11 comments:
Hilarious. Carrie is smart... Once she told me she liked my hair lighter as well, maybe I should try some highlights next time I'm at the salon. Oh and if I ever see you in person again, I would love it if you called me the bomb.com.
I can't wait to see it! Go get 'em, girl! I have yet to attempt clothing for myself. The best I have done are aprons. I am sticking with what works for now. Perhaps I may be inspired by your finished product? I hope so!
Thank you. I needed a good laugh before I went to bed tonight. Good luck with your dress, I'm sure it will be the bomb.com
You better post a picture of you wearing it once you get it done! Seriously.
You just summed up in a nutshell why I am terrified of my sewing machine and tend to avoid it if at all possible. My dear husband has given up on me and hems all his uniform pants himself...and sews all the boy scout patches on for the boy, who's lucky to have a dad who doesn't break out in hives at the thought of winding a bobbin. Pretty sad considering my grandmother was an amazing seamstress and my mother taught home economics. But, hey, I can bake a mean cookie bar! I love the fabric...it reminds me of some dresses I saw in the window of a trendy little shop in Shirlington Village a few weeks ago...does that validate you a little? :) I'm not up on my polygamist bangs...I need to see a picture of this crazy wave thing.
P.S. Rhett has taken to signing everything he draws as rhett.com, which isn't really the same as the bomb.com, but I still find it quite funny...and curious. Such a unique child. Good luck with that seam ripper.
You are thebomb.com! (Which happens to be one of my favorite sayings, you know)
Good luck on the dress. I think that I hemmed the drapes in the living room 4 times (each panel), they kept hanging at different lengths, which is totally annoying. Don't worry, I am sure that many a woman has considered poking her eyes out with a seam ripper. I'm sure the dress is going to be thebomb.com, just like its creator.
I am so jealous of your writing ability. That entire entry made me laugh and was so reminiscent of my attempts at sewing (though I know that you are way better than me). My sewing machine has officially been limited to straight stitches and hemming.
Good luck!
What was in that limeade you were drinking? That was the most free-wheeling post you have ever written! James Joyce would be proud!
Oh Emily,
Where do I start?
First,
I have had such a long love/hate relationship with sewing. And clothes are my "final frontier" in my seamstress endeavors. A word to the wise: if someone tells you that a sewing project is "so easy" and yet it looks really hard...do not believe them, they only want to harm you.
Second,
Thank your lucky stars your kids are un-observant! My two-year old is half basset hound, you cannot believe the lengths I go to hide my dove candy...and the little demon stills find it.
Third,
The polygamist comment...I think I know what you mean. Never met a polygamist but went to school at a Christian Pentecostal School, and those hard-core "Holy Rollers" had the unfortunate bang puff which defied gravity. I am pretty sure it must of been in the same vain, in terms of "style".
Fourth,
I agree with your "did you make that"comment. It is a double-edged sword, and can be a real back-handed comment that woman are SO good at giving. My rule of thumb is that I want my sewing projects to look "hand-made" not "home-made" there is an ocean between those two terms, do you agree?
Here's hoping your dress is the bomb.com aka "hand-made" hip, if not, there must a polygamist donation center you can find on-line
Cheers,
Leah
I'm laughing so hard I think I just wet myself a little...don't judge me. I am 40 years old after all. And do you remember the night I skyped all 3 people sitting in your office while I tried to hold sewing directions up to the teeny camera so Carrie could tell me that a)you can't just skip directions when you don't understand them and b) the stuff I used to do the waistband was actually stuff people make craft baskets out of? Yeah, sewing runs in our family.
MMMMM... night nachos. You will not be sorry you labored over this project. You will be a better person for it and you will not look like a polygamist. The first time I made that pattern I also looked like a polygamist until I unpicked it one thousand times and made it right. Keep on keeping on.
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