How a bad dress can be a good thing.

Ahhh... Vacation!  Don't we all love that word? For me, this has been a double vacation. I have been off the harsh chemo drugs for a month and I am in the bosom of my extended family for a week. For me, that has been a recipe for relaxation. And when I relax... I sleep. I think I have slept more since Tuesday than I have slept in months. I get up, I have coffee, I go nap. I get up, I have another coffee, we go out for a couple of hours to visit, I nap. Last night we came back from lunch with friends and I fell asleep. My cousins and I were going to go out, but at midnite when I finally woke up, I found them asleep on the couch... so I went back to bed. I think my body has decided that if it isn't wearing the correct colors of work, it has a license to sleep. And I am not fighting it.

I am back up north with Michele's side of the family, who I adore. Strangely, they like me too. I don't really know what I did to earn this love, but I am not complaining. The day before yesterday, we visited with a cousin for lunch, hit an Aunt and uncle for a brief visit and then stopped at yet another aunt and uncle's house for a much longer stay. I don't think Michele intended the visit to be that long, but see... there was this fiasco with a dress.

One of the cousins is getting married. It's going to be a Renn/Celtic wedding and the flower girls dress is supposed to be period clothing. Now... I have some experience with period clothing. Here are some pictures of my absolutely beautiful, perfectly made Revolutionary war dress.



Full Length shot of Revolutionary war era dress

Handmade Revolutionary war era dress.

For a brief period, My friend Nancy had me joining her family in Rev War re-enacting, and those dresses are complicated and they are made on the person to fit exactly. Those dresses were perfect to every last detail. This flower girl dress looked worse than something made for a Walmart costume section. The seams were puckered. The thread was black on the red satin, sewn unevenly. When we removed the hemline seam to re stitch it, we found extra material sewn into the hem for no reason. It looked like the seamstress had just folded the bottom over a couple of times, stitched it quickly with whatever thread she had and then cut off the excess. There were seams stitching nothing to nothing. The zipper wasn't anchored in. There was extra material everywhere, the black neckline was torn and hastily re stitched to cover the hole. Basically, I could have sewn this while under the influence of Chemo. The kicker... the family was charged $150 for this. I can only assume this dress was not finished, but was hurried because of a short time line. At any rate... the dress repair provided me some time to sit and visit with my In-laws. And I enjoyed it. For me... the terrible dress was worth thousands because it gave me a chance to sit and share an evening of closeness with one of my Aunts. I mean, I love crafting with people. And ripping stitches out of the same hemline makes you sit close, and as you seam rip, you talk. You share funny stories. You plan. You ask questions. you learn.

I kinda hope there are more bad dresses out there waiting...