Pride Goeth Before the Fall

During our last murder mystery, Helen kindly lent me a dress to fit in with the 1930s vibe of the night. She told me it had probably belonged to her grandmother and that it didn't really fit anyone in her house because it was for short people. (She might not have said it like that, but I know what I heard. She might as well have called me shrimp.) It was a nice dress, and a tiny bit tight, but nothing worrisome. If anything, it wasn't tight so much as well-fitted. However, during the course of the night, I felt a few stitches rip and I was horribly embarrassed about my fat tummy.

Later on, while removing it, I saw that the frayed thread looked pretty old and I realized that while my habit of chugging frappucinos had not helped the dress to stay in order, it hadn't hurt as much as I thought. The dress broke away from the zipper mainly because that thread was so old that it had become fragile. I told Helen what had happened and promised her I would fix the dress. I mean, I have a sewing machine, no? I could just whip that sucker up.

Things happened, however, and I forgot about the dress until this evening when I examined the zipper and its lost threads in more detail. Folks, this wasn't some machine made dress. It was hand-sewn. That easy fix is going to require some invisible stitching to attach the outer dress to the zipper. The inner lining will be a much easier straight stitch, but I'm not going to bring down the awesomeness of this dress by machine sewing it.

I pinned the whole thing together for my ease of sewing, and I've got plans for tomorrow night. I had been going to make myself a cute pair of pajama pants, but I foresee some hand-sewing now. I would do it tonight, but it is late, and I will need to practice whipstitching invisibly prior to working on this dress.

I can't believe I thought I was just going to machine stitch this vintage dress. I'm an idiot.

Here's a picture of the dress in murdering action:



Totally cute, no? I mean, not as great as Helen's or Paula's outfits, but it is something!