Outfit 029 | Sewing Project

A few weeks into quarantine, I began to dream and pine over a particular dress. You've probably seen ads for this dress. This dress is usually linen, tiered, slightly oversized, and gathered. They also usually tend to be $200 and up. Looking back now, I'm not sure why I was so intimidated to make this dress myself, because it was one of the simpler pieces I've made of late.

I only made one mistake (albeit a rather time consuming one) in which I sewed the bottom ruffle on inside-out. I was so close to making it through a project without touching my seam-ripper! The bigger complication came after the dress was complete.

Now, one could say I am a sentimental person. Okay yes, I do tend to attach emotion and meaning to the most trivial of objects. Yes, I do struggle to part with my belongings. So be it, I proudly accept my overwhelming sentimentality. Each piece of clothing has a story, and this particular dress is now connected to a very strong one.

The dress was finished! I got dressed and walked downstairs, calling out to my photographer (boyfriend) that I was ready to capture some pictures of this project. Uncertain about the best backdrop, I tugged the sliding patio door open and stepped outside. As I surveyed my options, a faint buzzing sound grew increasingly louder, as if it were right next to my ear. My stomach dropped at the possibility. Trying to hold on to the remaining composure I had (hanging on by a thread), I stepped back inside and gasped out, "I think there's a bee in my hair". 

In the time it took for my boyfriend to walk across the room, what was once a possibility became a certainty. "There's a bee in my hair", I cried out, as I shook my hair in a panic. And then I saw it. The wasp, shaken from his new home amongst my nest of hair, and now most certainly angry and vengeful, sitting on the front of my dress. Adrenaline coursed though my body as I started to give in to the mounting panic. I'm not certain how, but I ended up on the front patio, frozen in fear. "Can you take the dress off?"  my boyfriend asked, surprisingly calm for someone also afraid of wasps. "No!' I cried, knowing that if I were to lift this dress up the wasp and I would be eye-to-eye. Then, my boyfriend became a hero. 

Wrapping his hand in his jacket like someone walking into a MMA ring, he grabbed the wasp and squished it. My heart rate slowed, and the fear started to become a memory. We lifted the dress over my head, his hand still keeping the wasp a prisoner, and I quickly dashed inside, realizing that I had probably embarrassed myself enough in my hysteria,  so I would spare my neighbors having to see me in a miss-matched sports bra and leggings.

Fortunately this was all captured on the front door camera, so my embarrassment doesn't only need to be connected to this garment in my mind, it can be re-lived for generations!

Knowing what I know now, and the uncharacteristic bold confidence that has snuck it's way in with the knowledge, I'd like to make another one of these. Perhaps in a blue, or sage green...maybe playing with the proportions a little? I'm thinking a longer bottom ruffle and shorter overall length. I'm starting to get more comfortable making small changes to patterns, hopefully leading up to enough sneaky confidence to one day have the courage to self-draft patterns.

For now, I'm just fortunate to have the bravery to open the patio door and face the looming wasps.