Thai food and the spa

All is well. 

I dropped off the kids at our 15 year old skater, drum player, snowboarder, and kid tender's house.  Why do we think girls need to be the care taker of our kids.... especially when said kids idolize the cool guy that teaches them to skate? 

With that done, I dropped off a knit dress that I have been working on, and THEN met my friend for lunch.  We had Thai food.  It was insane.  I love the soup and think it has healing powers beyond my comprehension.  Michele had never had mango with sticky rice.  Crazy huh? 

Well, I was frustrated, because despite the soups best efforts, I still felt lousy. 

I took matters into my own hands and retreated to......

I have had my hair cut there a few times but had never visited the spa.  Who knew?  It was perfect.  I am not the massage getting type, but dang, that solved all of my problems.  Diana was the massage therapist.  I highly recommend her to any one of you.  She works hard and gets to the root of the problem.  

I feel a bit dorky writing about this.  But I feel so normal (normal for me, come on, everything is relative).  I need to celebrate my new found outlook on life. 

Okay, I think the real thing comes back to sewing.  Here is the rest of the story.

I took on a knit dress.  Not my thing.  I think I mentioned it a bit ago.  I knew it would be a challenge, and like all dresses, it was.  The bride was patient with me, thankfully, and in the end, I think things worked out.  I was worried by the end if it that I lost all capabilities to make dresses.  It seems like the knit dress and I could not communicate.  I don't talk knit. 

The wonderful and great thing that happened is this.  I had a fitting for my "Slight" bride.  She is doing a frothy dress.  I love it.  It consists of Taffeta, organza, my favorite Chantilly lace, and tulle.  These are all well loved ingredients and I know how they will be honory with me and how they will delight me.  Who talks like this about fabrics?  Me, I guess.  The fitting went surprisingly well.  Remember at this point I was questioning any ability I once had.  The next morning during another fitting, the bodice surprised me about how well it fit.  Such a relief! 

I feel like I am in my realm again. 

I am optimistically looking into the next few months with excitement and my fingers crossed.  I love that there are dresses planned that will take directions that no one knows.  I am relieved that I am up to the challenge and looking forward to it. 

Will the storm now leave!

First off, isn't this picture so painterly?  I love a good oil painting of clouds.  It seems like Jamie, the photographer, captured that same feeling.  I hope you all like it as well.  Check out her blog here.  I love her peaceful images and interesting take on the world she sees. 

Here is where the self centered post begins.  It is the busy season.  I feel like I will be diving into an ocean of work... "will be" being the operative word.  I need to be drowning in silk and tulle and late late nights.  I haven't.  I got sick.  Not just a day of down time but a weeks worth of down time.  Dang.  I want to be so overwhelmed that I just get a ton done.  Not in the cards.  

Not only do I feel yucky but the weather is bad.  Yes, snow and slush and overcast skies.  Come on, it is April!  So I have time to stress that I am not getting anything done yet I don't have the physical capabilities to do anything.  Let's add on the feeling of being pretty out there as far as geography.  When I step out of the house for fresh air, my main worry is cougar or some other predator getting me.  I don't need to worry about the neighbors seeing me in my jammies.  Maybe I would rather worry about the neighbors than a wild animal.  I love where I live, but when I am sick, it seems way too far away from the grocery store or the nearest neighbor. 

Anyway, we went down to town for church today.  One of my sweet friends gave me a hug right at my breaking point.  So I cried.  I couldn't help it.  I swear, though, that crying really can help.  I imagine it must release some great chemical that makes everything okay.  Of course I was surrounded by great women that I call my friends.  So we had a short counseling session and discussed how it will be okay.... and it will be.  In a minute. 

In a way, it is better already.  I am sitting in the sun, peacefully, without the weight of wedding gowns on me.... Wait, that part about me sitting here without the weight.  Well, that isn't really true.  The weight I feel is just less than before.  More of a handle-able level. 

What I really really want is to make each one of these upcoming dresses so cool.  I want to love each and every one of them.  Even their imperfections that hopefully only I can see.  Could I achieve this?  I will have to let you know. 

Thanks for listening.  I promise to quit posting depressing posts.  M

Why do I do this?

This weekend I made flowers.  Lots and lots of flowers.  I hated them, not all of them individually, but all of them as a whole.  I hated everything I was trying to do for this dress.  This is normal.  I go through this with all of my dresses at some point.  BUT, the dresses I really really want to be over the top crazy cool, well, I go through a lot more of the hate before the pay off happens. 

So this dress is for Abi, someone I have known for a long time.  She has got to be the happiest person I know.  She also is willing to go big with this thing.  If I have a willing bride, I try to take advantage of the situation. 

So the pressure is on. 

I love the pressure.... today. 
I hated the pressure yesterday. 

So I spend two full days of obsessing over the dress before I finally tore myself away from it.  We went "down to town" which sounds so country.  While coming home it dawned on me which direction to take.  I worked on it this morning and, wala, I surprised myself.  It has to do with the way the lace looks on these ruffley things I made.  It has a sweet but modern look to it.  The flowers I hated for the last few days have now taken a back seat to this new thing.  Now I don't hate the flowers.  The are not the big design feature.  They are the whip cream that could be omitted if desired.   

While I was frustrated and moody, I called my friend Michele.  She is a creative genius and knows what I was feeling.  I think I have talked her down before as well.  She simply stated, "It is the mother of creativity" or some sort of thing.  So of course I took that as literally the pain you go though becoming a mother.  Stay with me on this one.  You have to go through a lot of pain and you have to learn to be patient when becoming a mother.  I guess the same goes for creating something else.  Patience is key with dress making AND most every dress I create has a pain stage. 

I wonder if anyone else has these experiences while creating.  I worry if I just don't get it.  Maybe I need to learn to ride with the waves instead of swimming up stream.  I think, in the end, swimming up stream brings the best results for me.  I wonder if some people out there create while floating down a moderate river, with the sun on their backs, and sipping a tropical drink. 

This would be a great time to comment.  I am curious to know what you all think. 

BYU Bridal Guide with Heidi's Dress

The other day I received a bunch of emails from Amelia Lyon, the fabulous photographer who did Heidi's pictures.  She forwarded her responses to a whole lot of brides that wanted my info.  A big THANK YOU goes out to her.  Here is the story of why.

BYU's Bridal Guide used her picture of Heidi for a "The Dress" page.  It is the page that explains various terms of dress styles, etc.  You all know that page in dress magazines.  They credited the photographers but didn't think to put my name on the page.  No problem, thankfully Amelia passed on the info.  

Well, I decided to meet the people that put the magazine together.  I have always been curious about the publication.  So I thought it was the perfect excuse to introduce myself.  I know it is silly, but I am so glad I did.  I had a great conversation with Warren, the person in charge of the magazine, probably the most jovial person I have ever met.  He laughs with gusto, it makes me smile even now.  

We got to talk about wedding dresses.  It was interesting to hear his take on the whole thing.  We discussed the ins and outs of LDS wedding dresses.  For those of you outside of this culture, there are many guidelines you have to meet to wear a wedding dress that is appropriate.  Thus, most of the dresses you will see on this blog have sleeves and a more conservative neck line.  My question for those of you who are LDS.  Do you care if you wear the dress to the ceremony, or would you rather have a dress that is silk white or cream?  Would you rather have the over the top gown or go with one appropriate for the ceremony?  I usually avoid talking about this type of thing, but that is what a trip to BYU does to me.   

So that was the experience with the BYU bridal magazine and the happy people that run it.  The good news, Warren told me that they have had a big response to the dress.  I credit that to Heidi's open mind while making the dress and her genius choice of photographers.  I still can't get over the perfectness of that shoot!

Inspiration

I want to talk about inspiration while driving. 

I didn't have an appropriate photo for that subject, so I just threw up the decomposed necklaces used on Heidi's dress.  If anything, I am random.  More of her dress here. 

Okay, so the first ticket I received for speeding was in high school.  The officer was in plain sight.  I could have slowed down, but I was busy looking at the side slit thing found on my polo shirt hem.  Does anyone know the official name for those things?  I was on my way to school where I was going to tackle my first long sleeved polo shirt.  I am old, they were cool then.  

Well, I got the ticket, but I did figure out how to do it at that moment.  Worth it?  Probably not. 

Well, yesterday I was on my way to pick up my little guy from school.  I just finished with a fitting for a knit dress.  A completely different textile than my norm.  The bride knew that and hopefully also knew that it would take me a bit to do it correctly.  The fit was great but I didn't like where the darts were ending up.  I could have made it work because of the rushing over the darts, but I am one of those crazy people that can't sleep if certain details are not right.  So on the way down the canyon, inspiration hit.  I figured out how to re-do the pattern to eliminate those darts.  I LOVE it when that happens.  If you think about it enough, and you are lucky, inspiration will save the day.  Disclaimer, the solutions are usually so simple and beautiful, they should have been there all along.  It's just not how it works though.    

At that moment life was perfect.  I also knew I could change it completely and still have enough fabric.  Oh, and I think I was listening to a really good song on the radio.  That always helps.  

So the lesson: 

I am not afraid of changing it or starting over.  I think this happened slowly.  I know the first time I had to change something I was so frustrated.  I wanted to start on the change the next day.  I didn't, I did it right then, and I discovered it didn't take that long.  Since then I have changed, re-invented, started over, or just stewed over a detail for way to long.  I think I like it now.  It is part of the conquering of the dress.  That sounds harsh.  Okay, it is part of the evolution of the dress.  It's a process I have learned to enjoy and can't get enough of, it seems.       

This post is for Jeanette, my awesome sister that thinks I should "describe the process" more.  I am going with it, because I have no clue to what people want to see on this silly blog. 

Who needs this?

I received three packages today, it felt like Christmas!  The one from Europe is the one I am obsessing over.  So now I just need to find a bride that loves it as much as I do.  What do you think?

When I go fabric shopping I make a lot of stupid decisions.  This piece makes all of those other decisions worth it.  It holds it's own but could be embellished to make something frothy and delightful.  (Did I just say "delightful"?) 

So I will wait patiently til I meet the right person for this piece.  I love this game of matching. 

Rain melts snow

I couldn't post these photos until I knew it would be over.  The white winter wonderland will be followed by mud and rain and a few scattered days of warmth.  Funny how I view the latter as the better option. 

There is a good chance it will snow again, but I don't care, because today it rained. 

It rained and melted some snow.  We are still looking at feet and feet of snow, but we are on our way.  In the valley I smelled wet dirt, which is a measly 20 minutes away.  In the valley you can walk or run or ride a bike unencumbered by this....

Look, there's the husband.  I am always so happy that he deals with this aspect and I can just sit on the front porch eating bon bons.  Dang, I keep meaning to try bon bon's out.  Are they any good?  Okay, maybe I am snacking on some really beautiful dark chocolate.   

Bring on the dry heat of Utah and the long summer nights.