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23404. thoughtful - 1/18/2008 3:30:07 AM As wonks requested, a pic of me in my tea length dress
Not bad considering it was the first dress I'd made for myself in about 15 years. Sort of like riding a bicycle.
The stole is made from the same fabric as the dress skirt only it's flipped inside out... the fabric is matte on one side, satiny on the other. 23405. thoughtful - 1/18/2008 3:33:16 AM Ac is right. It's like a hunt...the thrill is in the chase, though it never hurts to bag some good game.
I dragged hubby to the outlets after xmas and I did really well. Liz Claiborne wool-blend lined jacket with patch pockets and a self belt in the back...fits me like a glove and it was only $25! I bought two other jackets (work clothes is my excuse) and shoes and tops. One top was originally $70 and I got it for $7. Wahoo! 23406. thoughtful - 1/18/2008 3:41:52 AM One of my favorite memories of me and Mom is when we decided to spend the day shopping in Fall River. Back then it was the place to go for genuine outlets. You'd climb the back stairs of a building and go in a small room with clothing in it...beyond was a door open to the factory floor with all the little old portugese ladies sewing away.
Anyway, we were having a grand time, buying bargains galore, and realized we weren't going to finish in one day. So we bought some sleepwear and supplies and headed for a motel to spend the night. Got up the next day and headed back to the outlets. Well it was getting on 8pm that night and still had several hours to drive before we got home. We stopped at one last store on our way to the Braga bridge. A woman overheard us saying we wished we had more time to shop. The woman said, "Why don't you stay overnight and come back in the morning?" We both laughed and told her we couldn't as we did that last night!
23407. thoughtful - 1/18/2008 3:52:02 AM That also reminds me of that hotel we stayed in. Believe me, even back then Fall River was no hot shot locale. The motel walls were very thin. We were already in bed and asleep when the couple in the room next door came in rather noisily, washed up, went to bed and proceeded to have sex. At least it didn't take them very long. Two minutes max. I remember thinking to myself that that poor gal was nothing but a spitoon. He was done before she even had time to warm up, but then again, maybe that's how she wanted it...over quick so she could get to sleep.
I was so embarrassed I thought I'd die and was just hoping that mother was still asleep. Naturally, mother is a light sleeper. We're both laying there wondering if the other is asleep when Mom said, "Phew! Glad that's over with." We both burst out laughing and I told Mom I think we need a cigarette! 23408. thoughtful - 1/18/2008 3:52:38 AM The Braga Bridge
 23409. wonkers2 - 1/18/2008 3:58:53 AM You were lucky it wasn't Harvey Wallbanger! 23410. thoughtful - 1/18/2008 4:00:44 AM Believe me wonks, I was sorely tempted to bang on the wall myself...might have dampened his ardor. 23411. arkymalarky - 1/18/2008 6:11:08 AM That dress is gorgeous, Thoughtful! 23412. alistairconnor - 1/18/2008 2:11:07 PM Wow Tful!
What a shame you have no head... 23413. judithathome - 1/18/2008 4:29:11 PM I agree the dress is gorgeous and you look great IN it...wear that !!! I love the stole, too. Can't believe you made those yourself.
My one foray into dressmaking left me ripping the garment out of the machine where it was stuck and breaking the needle off in the process, screaming and crying like a banshee the entire time. I was so upset and out of control, the teacher told me I could drop the class. She did suggest I not be allowed to take shop class, however. I guess she convinced the school that girls (me in particular) were far too emotional to be around sharp tools.
About three years later, they started allowing girls to take shop classes. Of course, it was about that time Valium went on the market, too, and became every woman's little friend. 23414. thoughtful - 1/18/2008 6:44:34 PM Hahaha, very funny.
Believe me mother and i shared some very painful moments when she was trying to teach me how to sew, so I can relate. What really helped me was when mother got into stretch and sew which is working with knits. Knits have the wonderful quality of never raveling and the seams are stitched together rather than having to be pressed open. Simple stuff with no fancy facings, zippers, interfacing and all that crap. So I got into making t-shirts & skirts like crazy...sew the side seams, add an elastic waist band, hem and you're done. Even the hemming was done on the machine because the hem won't ravel. It made sewing such a breeze. And, of course, at that time, sewing paid. Clothing was expensive and fabric was dirt cheap. Now it's the reverse. Unless it's for a special occasion where the retail stuff is $$$ or for the house where like purchased custom made drapes are $$$, sewing just doesn't pay. The cost of the pattern alone can exceed the cost of a top on sale.
OK, you've all convinced me...I'll wear that dress and skip buying a new one. I'll save my $$ and fun for buying some sexy strappy silver shoes to wear with it that will match the evening bag. Thanks for your input! 23415. thoughtful - 1/18/2008 6:47:07 PM AC, I used to have a head, but I lost it in the Fray! 23416. wonkers2 - 1/18/2008 8:15:18 PM The Cap'n sez, "No head but what a body! Hot! Hot! Hot!"
W2 says, "That's quite an elegant gown." 23417. thoughtful - 1/18/2008 10:25:22 PM Thanks wonks.
23418. arkymalarky - 1/19/2008 1:35:17 AM My grandmother was a beautiful seamstress and made my wedding dress. She made her whole family's clothes. I was always too spastic and sloppy to sew well. I had a good friend in high school who was great and sewed me stuff. I could hand stitch pretty well. 23419. wonkers2 - 1/19/2008 3:55:44 AM Both my grandmothers were quite good seamstresses and good cooks too. Somehow the torch didn't get passed to the current generation! Not enough time I suppose. 23420. arkymalarky - 1/19/2008 7:19:55 AM Grandmother worked in a sewing factory, but she was a respected seamstress there as opposed to doing repetitive assembly-line seams, and did a lot of sewing on the side. 23421. webfeet - 1/19/2008 9:07:15 PM Why don't more mothers end a playdate with calvados?
Each week I have a trolley car full of little people getting off at my doorstep. And I love it, because this frees my daughter from curling up with goldfish and asking, 'Can I watch a baby show?" or 'Mommy, pway with me' to which the answer is almost, routinely, no, and lets her dress up like a fairy princess, instead, with a friend. And my son exits the crusades on-line for human contact, for actual jousting with a star wars light saber with a willing opponent. What could be better?
Yesterday, at the end of a double playdate in which my son ran into the kitchen asking me for 'green food coloring' and I, insanely, acquiesced, I walked into my bedroom to find that he and his girl-friend had wrapped themselves up in toilet paper and were playing mummies on my bed, and that the green food coloring, was somehow 'leaking mummy intestines' and it stained my already shabby pottery barn rug in parts, green.
And, then having to go behind the back of the hulkish, joyless nanny from somewhere in the caräibes who did nothing but berate her poor irish charge (until the poor child burst into tears on the toilet because she'd soiled herself) I did a calvados shot. It was either that or kahlua (which I use to make truffle bars with, of course I don't drink that!) and calvados, decidedly, won.
And this lovely parent, who is always class mom, who told me she never ever drinks, and whose daughter had just traashed my apartment with my son, joked: "I bet that keeps you company during the day, too."
This is what I mean by *no parents I know, even the fun ones, are fun.* Instead of joining me for a drink, it was apparently more fun to insinuate that I am an alcoholic.
23422. wabbit - 1/19/2008 9:30:05 PM t'ful, that dress is beautiful! I used to make all my own clothes when I was in Jr. high/high school - you can't even begin to imagine. The Home Ec. teacher hated me, because I just couldn't bother following along with the class. They'd spend four weeks making an elastic waist A-line skirt, and by then, I had made the skirt, a shirt or two, and was on my third pair of trousers. I'd show up with stripes and plaids and fabric with a nap, then make my own pattern, and she'd go wild and send me to the principal's office. He and I got to be great friends (he had a crush on my mother, which didn't hurt). I used to tell him, "This is what you get for not letting girls take mechanical drawing," which was the class I really wanted to take. But sewing class was required for 7th grade girls back then. Cooking was for 8th grade girls. And the boys got into that class a few years before girls were allowed to take mechanical drawing, nevermind shop.
Ok, rant over...
Webfeet, your book is going to be a bestseller, I'm certain of that. 23423. webfeet - 1/19/2008 10:32:31 PM Picture me at this stage, hacking through the dead skulls along base camp as I plow my way up Mt. Everest..I still have a long way to go, wabbit, but you have always been a dear source of inspiration along this jagged, lonely ice-worn path.
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