ow, I like a good challenge as much as the next deranged person…but, really, two costumes in under a week? Am I completely insane?

I should be further along with these, but, between the wedding and my recent health crisis, September just wasn’t about making Halloween costumes. So, now I have a week left before I leave for a vacation in France, and I need to turn fabric into something interesting. So, Halloween 2000 won’t be my usual extravaganzas.

Luckily, MacKenzie has selected something straightforward; I have to produce a Dalmatian puppy costume, which is a breeze. In fact, I did the main body in one evening, from cutting out to installing the velcro closure. I used fake fur (yes, tiny little bits of it are now everywhere…my housemates are not amused) and a basic Butterick pattern. The hood part is very cute…it didn’t call for a lining, but I lined it in white satin anyway, if only to keep the little bits of fur out of Kenz’s hair. I also changed the pattern by lining the ears in satin, instead of using two layers of fur. I thought that would be too bulky.

Sarah wants to be a genie, which requires a bit more creativity on my part. I don’t like any of the genie costumes available, since she will need to stay warm and most of the patterns have bare midriffs and sheer fabrics. Great for California, not so good for Michigan!

The main fabrics for Sarah’s costume are ones that I bought last year, and didn’t use for the faeries. They’re perfect for this, though—blue glitter stretch velvet and purple sequin satin. I’ve finished the genie pants – they’re knit leggings, in the stretch velvet, with full, open-sided satin pants on top. The velvet shows through at the sides, and I finished the edges with metallic blue trim. The pattern is by New Look; I split the top of the leggings to make a yoke, and then gathered the satin legs to the knit legs, and sewed them together. I put an elastic casing at the bottom of the satin pants, to give them the right poofy shape.

I sewed beads and bells at the ankles and waist, and made beaded fringe on the bottom edge of the yoke. Once again, I had to be taught the lesson that, if you’re going to sew bells to a project, do it when the costume is finished. Sure, it’s fun to sew the bells on, but do you really want to listen to them every time you move the fabric? No, you do not.

The top is made of the sparkly knit, with poofy satin sleeves. The top of the bodice has purple satin draped over it, and a tie in the middle, for sort of a bikini top effect. Sort of. Ok, it’s not the best thing I ever did. Moving on…

The hat is a cute pillbox, made of the sequined satin. I had a great piece of broken costume jewelry, with a big purple stone, and I sewed that to the front of the hat. Above that is a motif I embroidered in gold thread. There are small hooks on the sides, which connect to loops on the veil. The veil is a great metallic sheer knit.

Anyway, the costumes got to the girls in time, I was able to go to France without feeling guilty about unfinished costuming, and everything fit them reasonably well, although I seem to have over-estimated the length of Sarah’s legs; there’s poofy and then there’s ridiculous…

[Early August 2000] Ok, a quick disclaimer here: I really, really tried to buy a dress off the rack. It just didn’t work out. I’m in a wedding at the beginning of October, and my friend, the bride, came up with the very reasonable idea of having all of us choose similar but not identical dresses, in fall colors. This is a particularly good idea given that I am a totally different body type from the other 3 chicks in the wedding party. There is no dress on this planet that would look good on all of us. (actually, the original title of this journal installment was The Fat Bridesmaid, but it was nixed on account of being a wee bit negative.)

Simple enough task; we decided on a ballgown silhouette, and the others all got lucky at the Jessica McClintock outlet. However, after months of fruitless searching, I was still empty handed. Initially, everyone involved was against the idea of me making my own dress. I think this may be related to my tendency to finish projects at the last minute…or a few hours later. Eventually, though, we all realized that the amount of effort required for me to find a dress wasn’t going to be any less than I would need to make something. Also, the search process was making me really cranky.

I decided to do a top & skirt, because it’s easier to fit 2 separate pieces than 1, especially since my waist doesn’t seem to be where the fashion industry expects it to be (this was my problem in dress shopping). I reused the skirt pattern from my Winter Party dress (Vogue 7177, view B – I love this pattern!) The fabric is from Thai Silks…it’s a warm brown silk organza, with an allover embroidery of black vines, with gold colored (not metallic) roses embroidered on the vine. They look like ribbon embroidered roses, but they’re actually just thread. This is gorgeous fabric. I used black taffeta for the underskirt.

The top is gold colored shantung, also from Thai Silks. I’m making a princess-seamed tank with it. I used taffeta as an underlining, and am installing spring steel boning in all of the seams. This top will be able to stand up by itself. I’m using bodice techniques from one of my favorite books, Susan Khalje’s Bridal Couture.

[Late August, and shouldn't I be further along on this project?] I’m going to finish the top soon. Really. Still don’t have shoes. We’re at T-minus-5 weeks and the bride is holding together really well.

I do have really fabulous jewelry to go with my dress. Last week, my niece, Sarah, visited me in honor of her 10th birthday. We had a really great time! One of our field trips was to Half Moon Bay, which is a cute little town on the Pacific coast. We were walking up the street and there was a weird hippie store with crystals and dolphins and angels and crap like that in the windows, so

of course Sarah wanted to go in. I was very surprised to find a great jewelry selection, including the necklace I bought, which is a choker made of twisted wire with crystal beads on it. It’s cooler than it sounds. Trust me.

[End of August] Finished! The top is completely finished, including the internal waistband (a new feature for me!), and understitching the lining. I ended up self-lining the top; I had originally planned to use a lightweight rayon lining, but the color match wasn’t perfect and the lining on a tank silhouette is going to show at some point, so I decided to just line it with more of the gold silk.

The skirt is finished, except for the hem; I finally found shoes, so I’ll hem this weekend. We’re having another hem party, to do the bride’s dress and the maid of honor’s dress. I’m doing the bride’s dress last, so I can perfect my technique first! My dress and the MOH dress will give me a chance to practice my horsehair skills.

[Mid-September, less than 3 weeks before the wedding] Well, actually, there has not been any hemming on my skirt…instead of having a hemming party last weekend, I had an IV party, when my old pal the kidney stone decided to drop by for a visit. I spent Saturday getting fluids and painkillers pumped into me for several hours. Ick. The bride is going to take her dress to an alterations shop, since I am still a bit shaky from the painkillers.

The MOH’s dress is hemmed, and we have made excellent progress on

The Mother of All Chuppahs. It’s really beautiful; the fabric is a golden beige silk, and I embroidered a ring of ivy in the center with slightly darker thread. I had to buy the Plus Hoop for my Rose in order to do that part, darn! Now I have a huge hoop to play with….

[2 weeks before the wedding] Still harboring the kidney stone. Grrrr. We had the bachelorette party last night, and it was entirely too much fun! I wasn’t in the best form, since my two modes are 1. in pain, or 2. drugged, but I managed to have a great time anyway.

[1 week before the wedding] The chuppah is done, yay!! My kidney stone is gone, yay!!! I had it blasted with a laser a few days ago, and now I’m on the mend. My energy level isn’t where I would like it to be, because my body really took a beating during this whole ordeal. I’m still having a close, personal relationship with my painkillers, but I do get to have a few hours of productivity per day, which is something.

The chuppah really looks great. I’m quite pleased with it, even though I made multiple embroidery errors because I haven’t been terribly sharp for the past few weeks. Nothing irrevocable, fortunately. I managed to work around my mistakes, but it was very frustrating. I have zero patience for being sick, so having this kidney stone take me out for two weeks, particularly these two weeks, was quite a lesson for me. Once again, people were fabulous and took care of me and drove me around and brought me food and books. I have so many wonderful friends!
[post-wedding] I think I have post-wedding stress disorder. Well, not really, but I’m very tired! It was a beautiful wedding. I did the flowers the day before the wedding, and they were quite lovely. I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I managed to do a decent job anyway! The morning of the wedding, I met the other chicks at the salon and had wonderful makeup done; this was especially nice given that my skin decided to break out to celebrate. The bride’s skin was flawless, so I hypothesized that I was taking the blemish hit for her. Friends do that for each other, right?
The top of my dress was a bit too big, since I lost weight while I was sick, and the top was fitted to my pre-kidney-stone body. I can see the fit problem in the photos, and it bugs me, but I doubt anyone else noticed. There’s a great cleavage-cam shot that basically looks right down the front of my dress, but that one isn’t going to end up in any albums, if the bride knows what’s good for her… Still, I’m glad I decided against trying to do emergency alterations before the wedding. A rare burst of good sense.
So, on to the next projects.