ANOTHER Evening Dress!

Believe it or not, the BA is graduating from school in two weeks. The journey which began here

will end on December 11th with her Graduation Ball.

And of course, she must have a dress!

This time the dress must be a formal floor length dress in white or cream. This Ball is akin to the old Debutante Balls, so fashionable in years gone by. The girls are presented by their fathers and must undertake the father daughter dance, something which her Dad is very excited about. I have been fielding questions about dinner suit v lounge suit, bowtie v straight...for some time now!


Initially I thought the easiest option might be for her to wear my second wedding dress.

 

Which looks a whole lot better on her than it did on me!

But she wasn't having a bar of that. She used the fact that it was about 6 inches too short at the front as justification for not wearing it. OK, so I'm short! Aren't mullet dresses all the rage now anyway?

Apparently not for my girl.

Running short of time I announced that I would simply make her the one I had planned to make once before: Vintage Vogue  V2962.

 

I thought I'd use some heavy silk for the dress and a softer chiffon or lawn for the bodice. I checked a few online images and began to get nervous. It is entirely possible to make this beautiful garment, really badly. How is that possible, I hear you ask? Well, here are the steps:

1. Make sure you are quite short and have REALLY big boobs.
2. Use a soft drapy fabric all over so that the central bodice panels cannot support the weight of the hugely gathered skirt.
3. Tie something sparkly around the waist.
4. Alter the halter so that it looks like a bikini top.

To be fair, there were a number of images where the seamstress had done quite a good job but it had taken them hours and required massive amounts of alteration.

I called my friend Blondie who is a dab hand at all things sewing and asked her opinion. She had made a retro evening gown once and I'd thought it was the Vogue one, but in fact it was this one.

Nevertheless, in the course of our conversation, she offered to help AND donated 5 metres of ivory dupion silk left over from her own wedding dress 20 years ago!! "It's been sitting around this long," she said. We  had a long conversation after school during the week and decided we would do a combination of the two patterns. The skirt from Blondie's pattern was cut on the cross and not as full so we decided to subtitute it for the excessive Vogue one; and we decided to try wrapping the tie waist effect around the halter dress to hide the central bodice panels which we felt would probably wrinkle unless we boned it...and did we really want to go there?


Now this was all fine and dandy until the BA came home. She didn't exactly turn up her nose at our ideas so much as move right along to her own preference. And this was it.....

Undeterred I thought I might make a mock-up of the Vogue dress. Just to, you know, see what all the fuss was about! I actually thought it looked quite nice, despite the fact that the halter was made out of an old curtain! One look at the BA' s face here will tell you what she thought of my efforts!

Meanwhile I sent Blonde an email containing the BA's dress preference. She was delighted and promptly went out and bought a pattern which we could 'adapt'. I was a little concerned about the depth of the neckline of course but Blondie assured me we could create something appropriate.

So, here I am in the middle of all these 'mock-ups' and Blondie has gone. We have devised a neckline and adjusted the pattern, and now I'm going to try and cut it out of the silk.  It's not as low as the photo, and Lord knows if I'll get the skirt to resemble the photo in any way; the main thing is that it has to have pockets!

I really don't know what I'll do with myself once all these formals are over! I certainly won't be sewing too much for me because, although I am dieting, things are not moving too quickly on the weight loss front. In short, I have altogether too much front, and no one wants to sew for that :-(

I'll keep you posted on our progress!                         

Long Time Coming

A long time ago I started this blog, partly to keep my overseas family informed about our day to day life and partly to talk about parenting in the 21st Century. This blog kept me busy for a very long time and through it I met some fantastic friends.

 A Free Man and his Encumberances

A Strange Scottish Girl

There are others too; some who have become facebook friends; people I would be seeing for coffee regularly if we were not separated by thousands of miles.

As the tyranny of facebook took hold we found ourselves coming here less and less. Our posts became shorter and less detailed. Our 'writing' became 'note making'.

And then the purpose of this blog became difficult to manage. As the objects of my 'parenting' became increasingly more salient beings with minds and opinions of their own, there came a time when I could no longer post willy nilly about their everyday happenings. Where they had been delighted to see themselves on the blog page they became blase, irritated and somewhat possessive of their own images (ironic given the wanton abandon with which they post them on facebook!)

And I could no longer comment on the parenting process as the subjects of this process were waaaay too alert and attuned to my activities. More and more as I needed to talk about my parenting journey I was able to use my forum less and less.

A salient lesson for all parents. Don't TELL them you have a blog :-D

But shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
I think they've stopped looking........

Unfortunately, so has everyone else :-D

But hey, the autobiographical nature of this blog  meets a need for me. The ability to look (and read) back on things I think I remember and to be surprised (delighted/mortified) at the reality of the moment,  is such a gift. My scrap-booking has fallen by the wayside recently, even my photo-taking has dropped off. Occasionally in a sodden, hormonal state I may scrawl in a real life journal (most of which I cannot read the next day) but in reality, much of life at the moment is racing by in a superficially facebook notated glaze. I gotta tell you, facebook is a poor cousin to blogging.

 And such momentous things have been happening.

Here is a random 'round-up':

1. my 17 year old daughter has finished school and looks toward her future
2. she also thinks I am irritating and lame
3. having been my best picture going buddy for years she now wants to see things like 'Prometheus' and 'Hideous Scarey Paranormal Death Movie' (oh, alright, I know that's not a real movie....but you get the picture!)
4. actually, she would rather go anywhere with her boyfriend rather than with me
5. my 17 year old (under aged) daughter recently asked me to provide her with alcohol for a party(wt?????????????????) .
6. This year she was dumped by her first (long term) boyfriend
7. She has since met and started seeing a 20 year old young man who is in the ARMY!!!!! On a good note, he's a Christian, on a neg note....he will be deployed shortly.......
8. my 14 year old stepson no longer comes to stay with us
9. he continues to ask for taxi services and money
10. he has recently been diagnosed with a specific learning difficulty (thank you step mother for noticing that I was struggling!!!!!! .........>:-( .....as if)
11. there has been a whole lot more interaction between the Small Boy's mother and Himself (a good thing) and he may even change schools and go to the independent school we had initially suggested (....I really hope she offers to go halves) which has to be good for him! I hope.
12. A few months back I completely lost it with the Small Boy (see point 8)
13. My shoulder injury earlier in the year really impacted on my health, fitness and attitude. I put on a HEAP of weight. More than I have EVER put on before. Menopause may have had an impact on this.
14. I WENT THROUGH MENOPAUSE!!!!!!!! (WTF????)
15. We came into some money (Praise God!!!!)
16. We absorbed a lot of it in clearing up some issues with our business >:-(
17. Our partner did a runner. >:-(
18. We discovered we were a lot better off without him! :-D
19. I started working at the business in a bill paying, book keeping capacity!
20. We have had some significant improvements made to our house. There are more to come!!
21. My job has become increasingly stressful
22. I still love my job
23. We have heard nothing from No1 Son in 6 months. This is not a good thing.
24. No 2 Son is still living downstairs with the cockroaches. At 23 he occasionally works as a builder's labourer with a friend. No girls visit (anything to do with cockroaches??) but he seems to be in a very happy relationship with his Playstation.
25. I have had to make/buy a lot of formal dresses this year and another one is on the way!
26. My sister visited in October and my Mum and Dad are here now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 So, there we are in a nutshell. I suspect a few of these 'entries' will need explanation as I go along. But for now I am happy just to be writing again.

For The Baby Angel Although She Would Be Horrified

How do I let you go?
How do I let you go after I have loved you so long?
How do I hand you over to another's hand?
Small, snuggling, needy child
You grew
Every stage of growth
A loss
Every moment a treasure
A robbery

How do I let you go?
After I have loved you so long?
It is time
Time
Relentless ruthless foe
It is time
Loss
It is life that makes this so

No-one took you from me
There was no tragedy
But the moment you were born
the end began.








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