To give you a little history on the MOB dress…I started looking for an MOB dress back in February. I had an idea of the kind of dress that I wanted: simple, straight A-line, an appealing color.
Should be easy to find, wouldn’t you think? But no! Colors this year are very bold–browns and reds. And the kinds of dresses the fashion industry wants to put on MOB’s? Well, let’s just say that Queen Elizabeth could easily find something to wear.
My concern was growing, especially as the MOB dress seemed to be one of the first questions people asked me about when they heard my daughter was getting married. Who knew?!
On a whim one afternoon, I popped into a fabric store. First, the fabric. I wanted a periwinkle linen. Within a minute, I walked past it. As if it had been waiting for me!
Next…the pattern. Again, almost instantly, I found just what I was looking for. Better still, the pattern promised that it was SIMPLE and EASY. So home I went, fabric and pattern and thread and zipper and lining…and I whipped up the dress that very day.
My family loved it. LOVED IT! No one could believe I had made it.
But I could. I knew where the flaws were and I also knew that the pattern company had lied. It wasn’t SIMPLE and EASY. I’m convinced that they left out half of the instructions just to mess with people.
The more I angst-ed over it, the more I felt I just couldn’t wear a homemade dress to my daughter’s wedding. So back I went to the stores to look for another MOB dress. Nada.
Finally, as June approached, I bought more fabric, another pattern and accoutrements, and begged a few talented friends to help me make a second dress. They looked at me as if they didn’t know which end of a sewing machine to use and WHAT WAS I THINKING?
Beaten, I went down to the local seamstress who had altered my daughter’s wedding dress. I left the store with a date for a fitting and breathed a sigh of relief, even after writing the enormous check. Relieved until I stopped in for my first appointment and the dress hadn’t been started.
Next appointment, it was started but not sewn.
Last Saturday’s appointment…well, you know how that went. The seamstress just didn’t seem to feel the urgency about the MOB dress that I did.
By Saturday afternoon, when I arrived for that 4pm deadline, the dress had made remarkable progress. Still needed work, but it actually looked like the dress I had originally envisioned. Inside out, it looked far better than the one I had made. On the outside, though, I actually think my first, homemade version fits better. (Wouldn’t that be a joke on me?!)
The seamstress pinned the hem and pinned the sides and said, “Okay, come back Wednesday.”
And finally! My assertiveness training kicked in. I scrunched up my face and said, “Uh, how about Tuesday?”
She shrugged. “Okay.”
Stay tuned.
