Switching to Tea

I have gone from rum to tea. My tea tonight is called Zen, and it's from Tazo. My child made it for me. It will be the last thing to touch my lips (save my spouse) before I drift off to sleep. Sleep, how I long for thee! I live in a sweatshop in the garment district of Austin--at least it feels like I do. But Jessie is working just as hard as I am, and I am so proud of her! She is staying positive and cheerful even though cold rooms (the fabric studio), and sewing--much less sewing all day--are not at all her things. She has also contracted my cold (as has Dave) so she's pretty pitiful.

Today on the Great Dress Front we had to completely redo the gold shoulder ruffle because we determined we needed a shoulder strap to sew it to, that it just wasn't going to support itself and stay together. J has been working on it since 10:30 this morning with a short break for lunch and a longer break for dinner and Jumanji at the Alamo Drafthouse (hey, all sewing and no movies make Jessie and Brenda dull girls). J also finalized the deep blue satin gown. I posted pics the other day of J's original design and the red gown gown she also liked for the sleeves. She really wanted big swooping curves along the bottom of the dress--as opposed to a bunch of little ripples. My best option for getting that kind of stiff curves was to put a stiff plastic cord or vinyl tubing all along the hem. She didn't like that idea. We found a a vintage Vogue pattern from 1957 at JoAnn Fabrics last night and she decided she wanted the skirt to go out like it did. I told her that effect was achieved with a crinoline. She said a crinoline sounded cool, but then I reminded her that if she made the skirt shorter in the front (she really wanted to see the gold lining) she would see the crinoline instead of the lining.

We went round and round on the design and she finally ended up with the sleeves and top of the gold gown above, and the skirt from the Vogue pattern at left--but extended all the way to the floor. The skirt is heavy deep blue satin with a soft gold satin lining. I had to go back to JoAnn's this afternoon and get several more yards of fabric as we barely had enough for the godets (the wide panels in the skirt between the front panel and the side panels and between the back panel and the side panels. They make the skirt a complete circle. Tonight I found a ballgown crinoline on Amazon (of course they have them!) with prime shipping and when it comes we're going to add gold netting to it (it's white).

 So at the end of it all, the skirt will almost be as big as the red one at right. I haven't sewn anything this big and extravagant since my wedding dress (and I'm thinking it paled in comparison--even with the lace bodice and the boning).