Betrayal and triumph over adversity

This is the tale of the purple floral dress that almost wasn’t. But first, it almost was.

Last week, I told you how I was merely sleeves and a hem away from completing the dress. It was looking good so far. Well, all except for the zipper; apparently I had been out of the game for too long. The next one will be better, I promise!

The dress was laying out on my cutting table to stay out of the way while I worked on the sleeves. But, as happens so often around here, something distracted me and the sleeves were left on the ironing board and the dress remained on the table for another day. Until…

“I cutting! I cutting!” came the happy little cry from the other side of the cabin.

I was only half-paying attention as I was thoroughly engrossed in Twitter something really important. “Ok…” I absently replied.

“I cutting!”

This time the words sunk into my brain and I glanced up in horror. “Where is he?!” I demanded of Mr. Gren.

“I here!” Konik answered happily from my sewing area.

“Oh no! Oh no no nonono!!!” I dashed across the cabin to the scene of the crime. Konik looked up at me in terror and threw down the scissors he had been using. My gold-handled DMC scissors that I had bought in France. The gold handles had been peeking out from underneath my sewing machine cover, beckoning, luring little 2 year old hands. Oh, my scissors, how could you?! I trusted you!

Konik ran for his life while I crumpled over my purple floral dress with its new fringed hem treatment. The snips were nearly 2″ deep. I was too distraught to do anything about it that day and I needed a day to think things over and decide the best course of action. Because the dress has princess seams, adding something along the bottom would just look unnatural. Besides I barely had enough of the fabric for the dress (darn 36″ width sneaking in there amongst the 44″ bolts!). There was nothing to do but trim off the cut up edge all the way around and just suck it up and deal with a shorter dress.

Pre-surgery, I was really liking this dress. Once I finished it and put it on, I felt like an 8 year old. I always feel a little ridiculous with skirts above the knee, especially on a flared silhouette like this. I went ahead and wore it to church anyways and got a few compliments, so I guess it doesn’t read as juvenile to everyone else as it does to me.

Apart from the length, the armscyes turned out to be a little… restrictive. I wore the dress all day but never could get over the sensation of having my arms cut off at the shoulder joint. Apparently it was made for people with matchsticks for arms and I do not fall into that category. The pattern (McCall’s 6504) does have sleeveless options, so I’m seriously considering just removing the sleeves altogether, cutting the arm holes bigger and then just binding with bias tape since I have no fabric left for facing. In fact, if I’m going to wear this dress again, I’m going to have to do this. I hate having to go back and do major reconstruction (I know, somebody’s going to tell me that this is what muslins are for), but in the grand scheme of things, it’s not that big of a deal and I’d rather have something wearable.

But there’s not time for that this week — I’ve got to finish getting wedding clothes sewn! More on that to come.