Bridalstiltskin: Let's catch up. Shall we?

OK, so let me take this opportunity for us to catch up on the past few weeks. First of all, as of tomorrow I am a MASTER! I graduate from AUM with my Mater's in Business Management and could not be happier to never have to go to school again! I turned in my last assignment and ripped my binder in half...that felt AMAZING!

Now for the good stuff...

I met Rachael Snow in Mrs. Roger's kindergarten class. We have been best friends and partners in crime since that day, and let me just say that the only things that have changed about our relationship are that we now have substantially less "nappy" hair and have gotten much taller. I thought a lot about Rachael as I was walking through the Eastdale Mall two weeks ago looking reeeeeally creepy with a hang-up bag on my shoulder. When we were probably in kindergarten our guitar teacher, Mr. Back, used to carry around what I think was a hard guitar case (but at the time looked ginormous). Rachael and I would ALWAYS ask Mr. Back what was in the guitar case and he would always respond with something like "bad little children" and we would scream and run away. I felt like I was Mr. Back creepily strolling through the mall with bad little children in my hang-up bag. Really, I was carrying around the sample of my dress in search of a corset that would fit underneath. I needed one that would not make my life miserable trying to make sure the boning hit in the same place as the princess seams. I found the perfect one! It only has boning on the sides and has this crazy padding/"suck your gut in" magic in the front. Also, the back of the corset hit in exactly the place I need it to, so that was a huge blessing!

Next, I spent about two hours walking around JoAnn's Fabrics trying to decide what to use for interfacing. I went from picnic table utility fabric, to curtain lining, to linen suiting. I love the drape of the linen and thought the weight would be good for what I need. I also liked the fact that it's a natural fiber so it will breathe more than a plastic picnic table cloth. Then, I decided that was a terrible idea because of the wrinkle factor. So I decided to go with a medium-weight cotton twill. I'm pretty happy with it. It still wrinkles some, but we experimented with starch and called Momoe (my grandmother) for advice on whether we should buy the old school powdered starch and dip the fabric. Momoe helped us come to the decision that we were clearly over-thinking this and needed to stop creating problems and cut the dang fabric! Thanks, Moses...always a voice of reason. On a side note, Momoe informed me that she has purchased a statue of Moses parting the Red Sea (because my sister and I call her Moses and she has finally come to terms with the fact that we will never stop) and that it looks like he's doing the parting with his middle finger. I let her know that as soon as my dress is done I will work on outfitting Moses (the statue) for every holiday. I think he is in desperate need of a traditional kilt, and probably a matching bow tie.

In any case, we played around with the starch and the fabric is working perfectly as interfacing. Mom and I started cutting the silk and lace this week and putting things together! IT IS BEAUTIFUL. The most annoying part is that I have to take off a lot of the beading to be able to sew the seams. As I was about to cut the lace for the first time Sandy said, "The first cut is the deepest....isn't that a song?" Yes, Sandy it is.

We were really concerned that because the lace itself is only 30-something inches wide and the damask pattern naturally runs horizontally that piecing it together would be a nightmare, but it really hasn't been bad.If you can't tell we have a tendency to get ourselves all worked up over things that really aren't big deals. Although, when we hadn't decided whether to applique the lace seams or set them in with the silk we were getting a little scissor-happy... I thought Sandy was going to have a stroke when she saw the seam allowances. I told her to go have a glass of wine. I wound up deciding to applique small pieces on to the sides to fix that little snag.