I made a dress and only cried 3 times making it!

Ok maybe it was more. I forget how many times I cried. See this is what happened. We were attending a wedding last weekend. 2 weeks before, I tried on my favourite dress (blue with flowers) and it wouldn’t zip up. That’s right, I gained weight! Woohoo!! (this joy over my weight is sarcastic). So then I had to make a dress. Months and months before, I had bought a pattern for 15$ and fabric for 20$ thinking I’d make myself a new dress my boyfriend had never seen and impress both him and myself. But then I never got around to it and was going to wear my favourite dress anyway. When I realized I didn’t fit into it, I scrambled to make a new one. The first weeknight I started it I thought “This is awesome! Patter is easy; why don’t I make all my clothes? Second night it wasn’t fitting as well. Spent hours trying to figure it out. Cried a bit because that’s what I do. I settled down and kept going. Final time I worked on it, the back was HORRIBLE! The pattern is easy but then you have to adjust it to your curves (or lack thereof in my case in the hips and butt department). I made my boyfriend think “she’s crazy, it’s just a dress, what happened to my wonderful girlfriend and who is this hysterical creature?” – Turns out it’s hard to convince people you’re rational when acting irrationally. oh well . Eventually the dress was finished and I felt blah (it’s a word) about it because I knew the emotional distress it had caused me. But then I wore it last weekend and it was super comfortable and I thought I looked sharp in my handmade gown!

I wore it with this shawl. No pictures of the ensemble but we are going to two more weddings so I’ll model both for the camera at the next event!

Lessons to take away from all this:

1) wearing handmade gives you an incredible sense of pride and comfort
2) making your own clothes is cheaper (if you don’t include the labour)
3) making the darn stuff can induce crying fits in some people, namely me.

Will I make myself more clothes? Probably not. Then again maybe it’s like long-distance hiking. You ask me right after I’m done a hike and I’ll tell you “NEVER AGAIN”. you ask me 6 months to a year later and I’ll tell you I’m itching to go!