Wedding Dress Progress Post #6: The Big Reveal!

It's been almost a month since I last gave you all any updates about Elaine's wedding dress; I last left it at it's-being-sent-to-Tucson-gosh-I-hope-it-arrives-and-fits...oops! Hopefully these photos of the finished dress on a real person will make up for my delayed wrap-up post. Unfortunately, they're just my iPhone pics from the wedding day, but you can bet I'll show off the "real" photos once Elaine gets them!

The hem just perfectly skims the tips of her shoes in front, so as not to trip her while walking.

It's got just a tiny bit of a train in the back. Also, this is probably the best representation of the true colors of the outfit.

Side view!

I had sent the almost-finished corset to Elaine a couple weeks before the wedding so that she could try it on and play around with applique placement. She sent me some pictures that made me a tiny bit stressed about the fit, but at least it arrived safely! I got it back from her without incident and attached the applique to the front by hand, going with the most popular placement (Elaine agreed that she liked this best, too): straight up and down on the second panel. I was slightly sad that putting the applique on last meant that the stitches showed through on the inside, but there was really no other way to have a corset for her to try on without finishing the lining (and therefore the grommets) first. I also sewed up a modesty panel, which was pretty much just a rectangle made with the fashion fabric and lining and bound with the same cream binding. At the very last minute, I also hand-stitched a tiny blue heart on the inside for a "something blue." The fabrics for the corset and dress are obviously new, the lining fabric is old (yay stashbusting!), and the crowning touch on the whole outfit was her mother-in-law's gorgeous amethyst pendant that just happened to perfectly match the whole ensemble!

You can just barely see the ribbon loop holding the back lacing on the modesty panel.
I am so proud of how evenly the back lacing gap turned out!

In the days leading up to Saturday, I found myself having brief moments of panic here and there where I would find myself freaking out (quietly) about whether or not things would fit, whether Elaine would like the ketubah, and just hoping in general that she would feel like the dress was everything she'd ever dreamed of. I loved my wedding dress and it made me feel like a princess (gag, I know, so cliche, but it's true), and I so wanted my best friend to feel the same way! Thankfully, when I laced her up on the morning of the wedding, it looked beautiful and fit way better than I had thought it would when looking at the trial pictures. When Elaine's mother walked into the dressing room, she said that I would have to make her granddaughter's (Elaine's niece) wedding dress. Um. While I love that she trusts me that much, I'm not in any hurry to make another wedding dress! Thankfully, said granddaughter has at least a decade to go before even thinking about marriage.

Right after the excitement of finding out that the dress fit, there was the excitement of the first look!  I love how obviously happy they both are.

The wedding day itself went very smoothly -- the ceremony was beautiful and there were lots of LOTR references throughout, the weather was just right and the food was plentiful and delicious. Nikki (the third member of our little high school best friends trio) and I didn't drop the chuppah or giggle too terribly much during our speeches. All the guests loved Elaine's dress and couldn't believe that I had made it (frankly, I was having trouble with that idea too!), and suggested that I go on Project Runway. Ha! All of you fellow sewasauruses know just how funny that compliment is.

You can see my back as I hold the chuppah pole. 

Okay, maybe I did giggle a lot during the speech-making. 

Summary:
Pattern: Simplicity 5006 for the corset and skirt, but significantly modified to get the look Elaine wanted. I draped the lace overskirt myself, no pattern used.
Fabric: Six yards of eggplant-colored satin for the corset and top layer of the skirt, five yards of cream-colored satin for the underskirt and corset binding, two yards of gold lace, all from Joann's (see, you can make nice things from big box fabric stores!), one yard of cotton coutil from from Richard the Thread for the corset's strength layer, 0.75 yards of IKEA Cecilia cotton fabric for the corset's floating lining.
Notions: 3" wide elastic for the skirt, 5 yards of 1/4" ribbon for gathering the side seams on the skirt and lace overskirt, 6 yards of 3/4" cream ribbon for lacing the corset, gold floral Venice lace appliques for the corset, 9 yards of gold venice lace for the corset and skirt trim, size 0 brass grommets, heat-shrink tubing for tipping the bones, and a 14" antique brass busk and a few yards of spiral steel boning, both from Richard the Thread.
Techniques: Tipping steel bones with heat shrink tubing, making a corset with a floating lining layer, inserting a steel busk, deep breathing, and learning to identify cognitive distortions (the corset might spontaneously combust in transit! it might fall apart on the wedding day! Elaine might hate me and regret asking me to make her dress!)
Number of fittings: I measured Elaine back in January, made a muslin of the corset for her to try when she was here for the TORN Oscar party, had a skirt fitting in March so that I would know where to hem it, and that was pretty much it. Although she tried on the corset in Tucson, it wasn't really a fitting since the corset was all done except for the applique.
Hours: Over fifty, spread out over a few months.
Will I make it again? Can you hear my hysterical laughter? No, but really, I actually quite like the Simplicity 5006 pattern, and might one day make it myself for costume purposes. Not anytime soon, though.
Total cost: $180 in materials, not counting tools like the snips I got for cutting boning or the tungsten file for smoothing the edges. I also have enough purple satin and gold lace leftover that I *might* be able to squeeze out a fake-Laurel. Elaine paid me to make the dress, and considering that the original inspiration dress was about $800, I don't think I ended up saving her much money. But as she very graciously said to me, she would rather the money went to me than some other random person.
Final thoughts: The whole way back home after the wedding, I couldn't stop exclaiming over and over  to Mr. Cation 1) how relieved I was that it fit, 2) how great it looked, and 3) how happy I was that Elaine was happy with it. Seriously, you guys, I was like a broken record, which probably wasn't very pleasant to listen to since we were stuck in some awful traffic and only just barely made it in time to catch our flight back to TCOCC to give Walnut his dinner. Anyway, let me just say it again: I am so incredibly pleased with how it all turned out! And now, theoretically, I shouldn't be scared of welt pockets, but we'll see how that actually pans out...

Besides Elaine's dress, I also made the LOTR-inspired ketubah, which turned out very nicely after about ten hours of work and $35 worth of materials.

I also had the pleasure of making the bridal bouquet:

Tulips!

Nikki and I stole the bouquet to take fake prom pictures. 

It was suggested that I might as well have made the cake, but no, Studio Cake took care of that nicely:

Books with cat toppers! Elaine and her husband have two cats, Cactus and Prickles (since, you know, Tucson), so this was just perfect. 

As for my own outfit...everyone kept asking if I had made that as well, but I explained that no, after making Elaine's outfit, I had no time or energy (or desire) to make my own. I ended up wearing a thrifted Frederick's corset and a thrifted chiffon skirt (originally part of my Bellatrix costume); throw in some Forever 21 jewelry and I had my bridesmaid outfit for less than $35! It seemed a little wrong to wear a cheap, ill-fitting plastic-boned corset made in China when I had made a "real" one with steel boning and custom fit, but then the bride's the important one!

Congratulations, Elaine!  Thanks for trusting me to make your dress!

Historical Sew Fortnightly: Literature

One of the best things about having siblings is that they get you. Having presumably grown up with the same parenting, environment, and influential books, there's a great comfort in knowing that they understand where you're coming from. For Emily and I, one of those things we share is a borderline obsessive knowledge of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books. I started Emily on these books pretty early, making her practice her reading skills in kindergarten by reading aloud to me while I washed dishes (it's like the poor man's audiobook). In the years since then, we've read those books so many times, the covers of our paperback editions (which I've had since a particularly gratifying fourth grade book fair day) are ready to fall off, and the pages have fruit juice stains from the many times that we've enjoyed apples/plums/grapes while reading (is there anything so glorious as a good book and a juicy piece of fruit?). Whenever we get together, we take delight in being able to work quotes from the books into everyday conversation at appropriate times. Somehow, Farmer Boy is the book that gets quoted the most. So when I saw that one of the HSF challenges was to recreate a something from a book, I knew exactly what I wanted to make. It's not as grand as some of the other garments I was considering (Mary Ingalls' going-to-college dress, Sara Crewe's rose-colored dancing gown, anything from Little Women, Anne of Green Gables, Gone With the Wind, or all of Austen's works), but this was simple to make and actually fits multiple pieces of literature!

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle never specifically describes Sherlock Holmes as wearing a deerstalker hat, but he mentions at times that the detective wore a "close-fitting cloth cap" and a "ear-flapped travelling cap." Because of this description, Sidney Paget, the original illustrator, drew a deerstalker, as it was the only style of hat of the time that fit both descriptions.

Some of Sidney Paget's illustrations of Sherlock on the go. [source]

Like SH's hat, a deerstalker is never specifically mentioned in Farmer Boy, but Wilder twice describes a style of cap that might be a deerstalker. Almanzo's cousin Frank has one that he boasts is from New York and costs fifty cents, and he shows how the ear flaps can be buttoned around the chin, or flipped up to button on top. Almanzo and his brother are both jealous. Later in the book, Almanzo gets a similar hat for Christmas: "The plaid cloth was machine-woven. So was the lining. Even the sewing was machine-sewing. And the ear-muffs were buttoned over the top. Almanzo yelled. He had not even hoped for such a cap."

My ear flaps flipped up, and posing with my magnifying equipment. 

This toy microscope was actually a freebie from a science teacher fair. 

Side view of the hat...looks pretty real! 

The button on the top is my favorite little bit!

It's like I'm some kind of weird headless mannequin. 

I still had a bit of this brownish-gray plaid leftover from my Mad Men dress and Clovers, and it's definitely machine-woven, so it was perfect for this HSF literature-inspired project. The lining is just some IKEA cotton fabric, and the while my flaps don't button, they can be tied under the chin or over the top. And best of all, Almanzo's cap is specifically described as machine-sewn, so I don't even have to apologize for not stitching this by hand! However, given that my machine threw a fit about sewing through so many layers of fabric and interfacing, I might have done better to sew it by hand (or with pliers!).

This gray leaf print seemed like an appropriate fabric for an outdoorsy hat.

I may decide to cut the aglets off of the shoelace tips so that it's less obviously anachronistic, but for now it's nice not to worry about fraying. 

Summary:
Pattern: I used Tanit-Isis' sunhat pattern to do the crown (with 1/3" seam allowances), then traced off a baseball cap for the brims (download pattern here). The ear flaps are just a shortened, rounded version of the crown pieces. While I just winged the construction, I later found these instructions for Simplicity 2517 online if you need more guidance on making your own deerstalker.
Fabric: less than 1/3 yard of plaid, even less of the cotton lining.
Notions: a shoelace, a 7/8" covered button, craft-weight interfacing for the brims (which could probably still stand to be heavier.
Hours: 4, sadly. I managed to botch the lining seam allowances so badly that I ended up cutting a seventh piece to make up the difference in circumference. Then I managed to very meticulously sew the lining the wrong side up, so I had to go back and unpick and repin everything. I also stitched in the ditch by hand to attach the lining to the hat at the seams so that it would stay put.
Will you make it again? Does one need more than one death frisbee? Yeah, I didn't think so.
How historically accurate is it? Polyester and shoelaces and craft-weight interfacing are definitely not historically accurate materials, but the general look is right, I think...deerstalkers haven't changed much since Victorian times, and mine wouldn't look terribly out of place in the late nineteenth century until someone saw the shoelace aglets.  Since I'm not working for a museum and this is just an excuse to make fun things, I'm not bothered. I'm at theatrical costumer level at best.
Total cost: I'm going to count this as more or less free, since I used all stash materials.
Final thoughts: I suppose by making this hat at home, I sort of defeated the purpose of recreating Almanzo's Christmas cap, which is specifically store-bought. Still, this ridiculous hat makes me as happy as he was on that long ago Christmas morning. Will I ever wear it for anything other than a costume event? Probably not. But I can sleep knowing that should I ever want to have a coordinated 1960s secretary/detective outfit, I could do it!

And just because I love Benedict's Sherlock:

"What kind of hat is it anyway? Is it a cap? Why has it got two fronts?"

"How do you stalk a deer with a hat? What are you going to do, throw it?"

"Some sort of death frisbee?"

"It's got flaps. Ear flaps! It's an ear hat, John!"

Those Elusive Four-Leaf Clovers

If this were a fashion blogger's outfit post, it'd be considered pretty boring: neutral-colored slim-fit trousers, countered with a more intense color near the face and a lace collar for interest. But I'm not a fashion blogger, and this standard work outfit is exciting because it's entirely me-made! Okay, I didn't crochet the lace collar, but still, it's exciting to have made some very sensible basics.

I need to make some new underthings that don't leave lines under my clothes!

Despite having made successful slim-fit pants before, it's been long enough that I've re-built up all my previous anxiety about fitting my bottom half. My orange trousers were wide-legged enough that I wasn't super concerned, and besides, there was no fly-front. Somehow, the combination of an unmodifiable center front seam and my weirdly shaped legs makes me lose all confidence. Oh, and let's throw in an untested pattern for good measure! Better yet, let's make it a pattern that's notorious for funky fit and requiring multiple muslins, the Colette Clovers. And the icing on the cake, of course, is messing with the pattern by throwing in a fly front.

Not that you can really tell it's a fly front, even close-up -- I did that good a job on thread-matching for the topstitching.

I've only ever made one Colette pattern before, and that was the free Sorbetto tank; that simple top required so many changes that I pretty much gave up on Colette patterns as being drafted for an entirely different body type, hence my refusal to buy the Laurel (plus I already had a shift dress pattern in the stash). Still, I figured pants might not be as bad, plus the pattern was free (generously gifted to me by Ms. McCall of Brown Paper Pattern)! In the end, I ended up not making as many changes as I was afraid I would need to. These pants aren't perfect, but they're not bad for a wearable muslin. Here's my list of alterations:

• I made them fly-front instead of side zipper pants, using pattern pieces and directions from McCall's 6610.
• Knowing how bubbly the darts would be in this unpressable mystery fabric, I omitted them and took out the difference from the center back seam instead. I think it worked pretty well, and I'm now pretty convinced that I don't ever need darts again. 
• I majorly smoothed out the hip curve, as they were slightly ridiculous. It was like bloomers or jodhpurs or something similar. 
• I also took out a bunch of width from the inseams, up to 1.5 inches on both the front and the back, tapering to nothing at the knee. 
• I took in the back side seams by about 1.5 inches at the mid thigh, tapering to nothing at the knees. Essentially, my back side seam is just a straight line down from the waist to the knee. 
• The curve of the waistband just didn't look right to me, plus it was made for the side zipper, so I subbed in the Sewaholic Thurlow trouser waistband. I felt slightly wrong, mixing my indie pattern company pieces, but the Thurlow waistband worked just beautifully. I faced it with a little bit of this nautical print Japanese cotton that I got in Birmingham on my UK trip a couple years ago, because it matched the seam binding so nicely. 

Pretty insides! 

I still think the back fit needs work, since there are all these wrinkles (fish-eye dart adjustment, maybe?), and the grainline is off on the front because of all my adjustments. The front under-crotch is slightly baggy too, but all in all it's not worse than any of my RTW pants. Hah! now there's a dubious compliment if there ever was one! I thought the whole point of sewing was to get better than RTW fit. Oh well. I guess the trick is to psych myself up for another pair before too much time goes by, that way I can really work on the fit while things are fresh in my mind.

Sometimes the back looks okay, depending on how I'm standing...

...and sometimes it's drag line city. Yikes. 

At least the back waistband actually fits! No plumber's crack or gaping when I bend over.  

As for the top, it's made from sweater knit rescued from my first failed Drape Drape top, simply re-cut into a cap-sleeve fitted top using my knit tee block. Since the sweater knit was so sproingy and unpressable, I decided against my standard knit neckband and instead finished it with some leftover rayon bias tape. It was looking pretty boring, though, so I added the lace collar at Mr. Cation's recommendation. I'm finally getting with the trend of collared everything!

I just now realized while looking at this picture that the cutouts on the collar are little stars!

Rayon bias tape made from the remnants of this dress' fabric, cotton crochet lace collar whipstitched on by hand. 

Summary:
Fabric: The remaining 1.5 yards of this stretchy gray-brown plaid I had left after making my Mad Men dress. They work beautifully for these pants since they've got excellent stretch and recovery, while still being quite stable. I used As a result, these pants are uber comfortable. The sweater knit is probably acrylic, about a yard.
Notions: 3.5" metal jeans zipper, hooks and eyes and a metal snap for the fly front closure, lots of seam binding. The lace collar is from Wholeport.com. They don't seem to have this style anymore, but there are some other cute ones!
Hours: The top took about an hour, the pants were more like 10+. I lose track when things take more than a few days to make.
Will you make it again? I theoretically want to, in order to fix the fit! There's so much potential here, but after a certain point you can't change the wearable muslin anymore because you've run out of seam allowance and/or patience. And the knit tee block I've already used a gazillion times, so that's a for sure.
Total cost: The whole outfit was less than ten dollars ($2 for the collar, $2 for the sweater knit, $5 for the pants, and miscellaneous other notions)
Final thoughts: I can't think of anything else to say that I haven't already, but generally I like it? These are the kind of separates that are so basic that it's hard to drum up too much excitement. I'm pretty pleased to use up more stash fabric, though...the pants are even stretchy, so while they may not be knit, per se, they're still kind of in the vein of the month's challenge??

I have to remind myself that most people don't look at me and think about the crotch curve adjustments I should have made. Nope, that's just me, sneakily staring at people's nether regions while trying to figure out how their pants fit. 

I think it's funny that these pants are called Clovers, since three-leafed versions abound (pretty good fit, definitely acceptable), but the four-leafed version (looks absolutely amazing and as drag-line free as the the modeled photos on the site) is pretty rare. Okay, that's a pretty belabored and cheesy metaphor. The question now is, do I keep working on this pattern, or try tracing my own from pants that already fit me? When I compared the crotch curve on the Clovers to my favorite RTW pants, they were pretty drastically different. The Clovers look more like the "official" crotch curve pictures in all the sewing books I own (less pronounced J in front, almost an L in the back), but I like the less-curved crotch curve fit of my RTW pants. Maybe I just don't know how pants should fit? Anyway, I bought myself the Craftsy Jeanius course to copy my favorite jeans since it was on sale last weekend, but I know myself and I don't think I have the patience/stamina/meticulousness required for Kenneth King's couturier directions. I think I'll give the haphazard pinpricking method a try first...

May Stashbusting: The Mint and Silver Dragee Tiramisu

Five months between pattern purchase and finished garment is not really that long a time. I've got some patterns in my stash that have been lingering unmade for years, but considering how excited I was for Cake Patterns' first release, well, this dress is somewhat overdue.

I really wanted to take pictures wearing the Tira while eating actual tiramisu, but that didn't work out. Instead, you'll have to settle for this gorgeous house in Kensington in San Diego at sunset. 

Since mint is a color that is also a food/flavor (and apparently there's at least one food blogger that's made a mint tiramisu), I ran with the concept and dubbed the gray sparkly stripes the silver dragees.

OH HEY GUESS WHAT IT'S A MAXI TIRA!

Isn't it gorgeously long and flowy?

The skirt just hits my instep in front, and skims the ground in the back.

I started sewing this dress with some of my earlier excitement tempered by the reviews from other sewing bloggers -- it seems that in the smaller sizes, there are more issues with getting a good fit in the bodice, and having to take in the side seams significantly seems common, too. Of course, the day after I finished the dress, Steph posted a list of corrections for the smaller sizes that will be in the second edition. I love that she actually took the time to read all the reviews and make those changes! However, they came too late for me...but I did end up making some of those changes myself, so I know I'm on the right track.

Even with all the changes, still no gaping! 

Based on my measurements and some of the finished garments I saw floating around the blogiverse, I cut a 30 for the high bust, an A cup, and a 25 waist. While my waist isn't actually 25 inches, the instructions helpfully suggest going down a size for a tighter fit, which is what I wanted. I was also really pleased to have stripe guidelines on the pattern pieces; in the past, when I've made garments with chevrons, I had to be extra careful and think long and hard about which way the stripes were going to end up before cutting (and even so, I may have cut a few pieces backwards), so it was nice to have that thinking done for me already!

I am so proud of these chevrons!

Changes I made: Besides the obvious change of making a maxi (my skirt ended up being 38" long, instead of the prescribed 24"), I also ended up

• omitting the bust gathers, 
• adjusting the center notch placement so that it didn't overlap quite so much in the middle,
• bringing the side seams in by another inch on each side, but then my jersey was very stretchy and quite thin. 
• When I tried on my bodice without the skirt, there was some weird wrinkling/dragging at the shoulders, and even when I pulled the midriff down to mimic the weight of the skirt (make sure you do that!), there was still a weird bubbly dip. I realized that it was because of the slight convexity of the shoulder seam; my shoulders must be really wide since they didn't hit anywhere near the supposed shoulder location of the pattern! I just made the shoulder seam a straight line and that took care of most of the problem. 
• Because of the weight of the skirt, the zigzag stitching started pulling apart a bit at the center front and back and the side seams, so I actually went back and added an inch of regular straight stitch in those four locations. This doesn't seam to have affected the overall stretchiness of the waist much, as I can still pull it over my head just fine. 
• At the recommendation of many of the reviews, I added the sleeve band after sewing the side seams, as I think it looks neater that way. 
• I also didn't bother hemming the skirt, since, well, floor length circle skirt hem in jersey = slightly worse than sewing over beads and breaking needles.
• Even though Cake Patterns prides itself on always having pockets, I left mine out since the jersey is quite thin and the skirt is already quite heavy. 

It's hard to say what my favorite thing is about this dress -- I love the colors, the wide stripes, the chevrons, the silhouette, the twirliness of the circle skirt...this might be one of my favorite makes ever!

Mr. Cation: you look like a flamenco dancer! Me: Is that a good thing? Mr. Cation: I dunno, that's just what you look like.

Weeee!!!

Twirly pic spam!

Check out my impeccable stripe matching at the skirt side seams too! The bodice, not so much.

Summary:
Fabric: 4 yards of 60" jersey knit in mint/silver stripes. The silver stripes were annoying because they're actually woven through with tiny metallic tinsel threads which kept catching on my walking foot's upper feed dogs. I actually ended up abandoning the walking foot when it made stripe matching worse than my regular foot.
Notions: None! I'm toying with the idea of going back and adding elastic to the waist, but I don't have any of the correct size right now.
Hours: Four hours, with one devoted to cutting...spreading out that much fabric in our apartment had to happen in installments. Fitting the bodice and fiddling with the walking foot also took some time, but now that I have those issues figured out, future (non-maxi) makes should go much faster.
Will you make it again? Yes! Like I said, I'm a fan of the chevrons, the surplice bodice, and the cap sleeves. I even traced my size onto tissue paper so as to keep the pattern intact in case I want to make it for anyone else; I'm that enamored of how good it looks on a multitude of shapes and sizes. When I make this again, I do want to raise the underarm seam a smidge, though, since it pulls just a bit when I raise my arms.
Total cost: $4...gosh, I love Michael Levine Loft.
Final thoughts: In case you couldn't tell, I adore this dress. I've said before that the reason why I love maxi skirts is that they're the closest you can come to playing dress-up while still looking like a normal person, and the swooshiness of this dress is no exception! I love how the top is so sleek while the hem is so full, and the colors are just enough to be special without being over the top. The fabric is light enough that it almost hovers in the air around me as I walk, instead of getting tangled. Okay, enough gushing; I could go on for a while if I let myself. Thanks, Steph, for making such a fantastic pattern!

Okay, just one more whirling dervish picture to properly show my joy at this dress.  

I've still got enough fabric leftover to make a top or a skirt -- but do I really need another dolman sleeve top? Probably not...but thankfully, EmSewCrazy and I have collected a bunch of project ideas for knits on our May Stashbusting board...check it out if you haven't already! And if you're scared of sewing with knits, consider this month's challenge a good reason to tackle them. Here are some good tutorials for starting on stretch fabric sewing. In the words of Thor, have at thee, stretch fabrics!

My Mother's Qipao

I admire my mother for so many reasons, including but not limited to the fact that she supported her family as a teenager by working in a garment factory, that she taught me to use a sewing machine, and made the dress of my dreams for my elementary school graduation. She's a gorgeous, strong woman, and when I was a child I used to watch her get dressed up for banquets and hope that one day I would be old enough to wear her dresses. Unfortunately, now that I'm old enough, I've turned into a fashion snob and have no desire to wear 80s dresses. Somehow, they never seem to mention that part in those sentimental YA novels about mother-daughter relationships. Still, there are a couple dresses from before I was born (the 70s fashions are much more acceptable to me) that she's kept, and when I was home last, I came across a silk qipao that I've seen before in her old pictures.

I love how deliciously vintage that couch is. 

These were taken back in Hong Kong. 

The qipao is actually made from a very thin and delicate material and the snaps are starting to pull at the silk a bit, but is otherwise in very good condition. I'm not usually a fan of pink and purple together, but I tried it on anyway.

I tried for the whole standing near a window thing. 

Also I didn't iron it beforehand. 

And I don't have awesome silver stilettos. 

So yeah, Happy Mother's Day, Mom! I celebrated by stealing your dress for some pictures. 

I love that I'm actually old enough now to wear this dress (she also found her wedding reception dress, but it's too late for me to wear that to get married in!), but I'm still sad that my favorites of her old clothing are long gone. Which brings me to my next long-term project (and it's going to a looooong one, since I'm in no hurry, I just like the idea of it): making my own versions of my mom's wardrobe from the 70s! I've got the wide-legged trousers covered, and there are a couple of bohemian-ish dresses that I love. Good thing there's no shortage of 70s patterns in my stash...