Hazards of Valentine’s Day Expectations

I wish I had taken my own advice yesterday and not had any expectations for Valentine’s Day. I thought I was safe from letdowns because DH and I were acting on plans previously agreed upon and were going to go out for a fabulously romantic dinner. We get so little time for romance.

I would wear the ball gown that he had only gotten to see during the construction phases, along with the “secret weapon”, jewelry, coat and shoes. I had, if you remember, had to attend the Fur Ball alone while he was on a business trip.

He would make dinner reservations at a nice place and we would go at a time that would allow us to get our late afternoon chores done and still have time to bathe and dress. I can’t eat too late at night because I have a bad case of acid reflux and suffer greatly.

So, we had reservations at 8 pm at a well recommended restaurant new in town and arrived a bit early for dinner. Unfortunately we entered a door that led to the “lounge” where we stood for 5 minutes untill a wait person came up, heard our story, told us to stay right there and rushed off to tell the maitre d’ that we were here. We stood. And waited in our coats.

We were standing next to an empty table for two and another 5 minutes passed when yet another wait person approached and told us to sit there. We said we wanted to sit in the warm dining area, have a proper dinner, and listen to the acoustical guitar and that we wanted to wait in the dining room. She rushed off only to come back later, sitting us at that table “temporarily” and offering to bring us wine but she had no idea where she could find a wine list. She hollared across the room to someone who she intro’d as “the real bartender” who couldn’t find a wine list either. I ordered brandy DH a mixed drink which we drank in our coats because we were seated next to the door.

An hour passed.

We had seating conversations with two more people including the maitre d’, until I got impatient and went to see the dining room. Twice. On the second trip I discovered that they had seated every person who walked in. There was one table for two available next to the guitarist. As I picked the salt and pepper shaker up off the chair and we sat down I related the story of ordering two unwanted drinks and an yet undelivered appetizer. The appetizer was brought but there was no silverware so the guitarist stopped playing, introduced himself as the husband of the owner, explained that they had to rely on unreliable employees, and went to get our silverware. Then he promptly quit playing and went to drink in the lounge.

After moving to a table that was not so drafty and I could finally take off the coat we got dinner at 9:45, half cooked. How do you half-cook a lobster, just wave it over some steam???

So that was our one romantic night away from the cares of being small business owners and managing employees.

It was the same old conversation but we did have it while being well dressed.

Secret Weapon(s)

High hip accented by pantyhose waist:

No underwear:

Oh ho! well, I wasn’t going without underwear but I got an idea to look around for something that would completely slim without the lumps and bumps of long line bras or the waist indentation cause by panty hose.

Spanx High Waisted pantyhose completely improved the dress’s fit and style. Perfect! The high waist did roll toward the end of the evening, though, when I got into a corny mood and did The Twist. I was with my two male friends and a few other single woman but most attendees were couples so I didn’t dance except for these few minutes of madness.

I also tried very hard to buy new perfume for my elegant night out. Lucky Magazine and Vogue have had samples of Lucky 6 that are crave-making. Upon testing in the store, the fragrance did not last nor did it “wear” well. Too puny!

Chanel’s Allure brought the usual queries and complements and remains a favorite.

Aftermath of Silk Obsession

I am not sewing today. Well, maybe not. I do owe some orders at the company. Hello-o-o-o-o-o to reality!!!

But it was so nice not to wake up with a mental list of things to do on the dress.

Things I didn’t do and it didn’t matter:

I didn’t hem the sleeves, left the selvedge edge.

I didn’t tack down the facings, they didn’t seem to need it afterall

I didn’t sew in the shoulder pads, I used double sided tape.

I used the double sided tape to secure the top of the sweetheart neckline to the bod, and felt so much more secure!

All these fine tunings of the dressmakers art really would have been wasted on this crowd afterall. I saw boned bodices held tighter with safety pins, gowns from the early 80’s, fluffy frou-frou baby blue bridesmaid dresses, totally wrinkle-y bias seams, a couple of crotch shots from a young dancer doing high kicks with a cut away hemline….

Oh my! and these were “nice” people.

But today: devotion to home and animals and catching up with TheSewingDivas! What thoughtful, intelligent posts have been happening over there while I’ve been covered up in silks….

Hello-o-o-o-o-o

The Final Product

Not perfect, but good enough. I had lots of compliments and found myself wishing I could have redesigned dresses for three quarters of the women at the affair.

Maybe I should open a custom shop to the public after all. It was so frustrating to see RTW on the 302 people who attended the affair. I only saw one knit dress and it was superb!

Glenoit!

My friend Els helped me remember the manufacturer of that fabulous coat fabric: Glenoit!

Wazoodle still has a few yards of the pattern that Els had purchased.

It is a wonderful fabric and very warm, fine stuff!

Quickie Coat

I don’t know if I’ll be able to get pictures of the whole outfit together tomorrow since the home computer is not behaving well, so I’ll show you the Quickie Coat just finished here at The Stitchery

Coat Front:

Coat Back:

Quick and Warm Fleece Coat

Fleece, thick luxurious wonderful fabric from Wazoodle a couple of years ago, this “fleece” is a deep pile with a knit backing. No lining necessary!

The back panel:

The front panel(s):

The sleeves and maybe a hood:

I may use a pattern (if I can find it) or I may just cut freehand. No time to line and probably no need since the backing is lovely, smooth and polished.

I am looking for the pattern I used in this review but I don’t really want that styling because of the looseness around the neck so I may just grab a shirt pattern and expand on it, so to speak.

ETA: Ah, found it, I’m cutting away………

Shoes ~ Oh Bruno Magli!

I am officially no longer a cheap date: shoes that don’t hurt or threaten are expensive. These I will wear til the end of my time.

I did not take the dog and she did fine shut in the house all day, thank goodness. We have only done that a few times in her 8 years of life and she was very happy to see me!

This old computer is about to die, finally. It was the server at the company until it was replaced 4 years ago with the prediction that it was dying back then. Time has apparently come. It took forever to do this blog entry!!!

Bye, you all have a great day! I have to go finish up details like installing the shoulder pads and making a coat (hehehehehe) My deadline is Jan 27, 6:30 pm CMT (tomorrow evening)

Pret-A-Porter at Phildar

Rustique and Bucolique Collections

I hope you all can gain access to this page. You may have to register with the site but it’s painless. Need English? right click in the header of the page and go down to “Page Info” where’s there’s an option to “translate to English”.

There’s some interesting details in the clothes (click on pix on the left to change views) like the gathers in the godets of the skirt, the first in the Bucolique Collection. The skirt body is strictly “vee’d” and the godets are parallelograms, trapezoids to be more clear, not triangles.

The page gives you a magnifying glass as you move over the garment, too.

Enjoy this Phildar site. I think it’s fresh and fun.

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The hemline of the dress turned out to be a bit short for the high heels I had chosen so now it’s a flat or flatter shoe I need.

I’m off on a shoe buying trip today. I have a very hard time with shoes so I’m going to try to find shoes that I can (1) wear all evening and (2) won’t result in a broken something or me unceremoniously falling down (it’s happened :o).

I don’t know what I’ll do with the Westie Extraordinaire: leave her shut in the house or take her with? The weather is cold so she wouldn’t be in jeopardy in the car but who can shop when there’s an animal in the car!!!???!!! Ah well, I’m back to life as a single person…Huspartner is driving to Boston today and I’m spoiled since he’s been home these past two months.

Silk Satin Sewing Tips and Pix of the Back w/o Bow

Here’s the back view without the gigantic bow. I immensely thank those who have left feedback re The Big Butt Bow…it’s gone! I refuse to wear undergarment body armor so what you see is what they’ll get see! I do so wish HusPartner would be my escort but he’s going to be out of town, I’m flying solo, but I’ve wowed him before he’s left (snicker)

Tips:

1. Use taunt sewing, pulling the fabric taunt with your hands before and after the feed dogs

2. Use size 10 needle and the thinnest thread you can find

3. I serged the cut edges because I didn’t have time to bind them

4. Don’t press hard from the front side, the edges of cut fabric will show through, press only the seam

5. Press the seam to one side and then the other before opening the seam allowance and pressing with a thick paper under the seam allowance.

6. Handle as little as possible. Silk satin fatigues, showing a fuzzy effect after much handling: I couldn’t avoid this as I had no one to help with fitting.

Now to see if I can get a tiny hem and even sleeves marked and tack down the neck edge facings to the seam allowances and put tiny snaps on the bra in order to give the neckline just a bit more support.