Three Girls and a Boy: Seamstress...NOT!!!

Aunt Cynthia got married this weekend!! Her neices and nephews have long awaited this wonderful day for her. Or, for them. The girls have long talked about getting to be in her wedding. Did she have a choice or did they ask what color their dresses were going to be?? They were engaged Memorial Day weekend. They were married Labor Day weekend. Not a lot of planning time. So, she went right to work on planning and preparing for the festivities. Somehow, after a bit of shopping, I got roped into sewing the 4 junior bridesmaid/flowergirl dresses for the neices. We went shopping down on Harry Hines for fabric and even though I laughed at the pattern's "easy" labeling (aren't they all??), I thought I would be able to manage the crepe-backed satin fabric and all the wavy ruffle things for the 2 smaller dresses.

So, since we were in the middle of major remodeling in our house, I tied the fabric up nicely in a bag and put it in my closet to protect it from all the glue, dust and paint we had spread all over our disastrous abode.

My 3 girls were so nice as to remind me often of how many weeks were left before the wedding. I think I may have even said "shush" to them once. With a smile, of course. So, after we got back from vacation in early August, I pulled out the table I had bought at Sam's two months ago just for this project, dusted Bear's sewing machine off (hers is much better!) and got to work. Things were going nicely until I hit "the tiers". Did I spell that right? Maybe it should be "tears". If I hadn't been so darn frustrated with those stinking tiers, maybe I would have shed some tears. I started wondering how long it would take to FedEx the whole mess to Amy in Colorado and have her do it.

And then, Mawmaw came over and in her smooth and angelic way asked me if I was using the rolled hem foot for the tiers. A what? Thirty years of sewing. Never heard of the thing. We looked in Bear's machine booklet to see what feet came with her machine. There was one foot in the pack that wasn't in the book. After some online research, we found that it was...a rolled hem foot! Mawmaw hadn't used one, but she knew her mom had and at least knew what it was used for. So, between the two of us, we figured out how the foot worked, practiced on some extra fabric and voila! A hem that didn't look like crap! Well, it was way better anyway.

Don't the girls look lovely in their dresses? Don't look too closely.

Still, I would have gladly paid $100 per dress for each girl rather than tackle that project again. I was so frustrated with all those dresses and fabrics! It is a good feeling knowing that I made the dresses for the girls, but I also know how bad they looked because they could have been so much better with a professional seamstress!

I'm so glad the older girls wanted dresses without the ruffles. (Bear, Bit, Little Girl and cousin Jillian.)

Here's a slideshow of various pictures from the wedding. We didn't take many pictures with our camera, but I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of shots the THREE PHOTOGRAPHERS got.