Busy Week

Well, I've had a busy but fun week. An old friend from my teenage years in Vernon was in town briefly this past weekend and we met on Monday. It was so good to see Tami, we haven't been together for three years, she had never seen my boys and I had never met her youngest, Elijah. I felt a little bad after our meeting as we both ended up a little frazzled, and it wasn't very good, quality, visiting time. We had to meet at a mall in the city as Tam didn't have a car for the day, and our kids ended up going a little wild. So we we're trying to contain them, keep them happy, and occupied and visit at the same time. We'll probably have better visits when our boys aren't so young. At any rate, I had to laugh later at the craziness of it, and just shrug my shoulders and say another time. I'm sure we'll get together in 20 years and long for these days with young ones back again, but on Monday we were exasperated.

And then the rest of my week was filled with, "the dress". One of the YW in our ward decided she wanted a dress "that doesn't look like everyone else's", for her grad. Her Dad said he would sew her one, (what a great Dad eh?!), I asked Blair if her Dad sewed and she said, "He made me a baptismal dress when I was eight." Hmmm, okey dokey I thought, so I offered to lend a hand if they needed help. This all happened at church on Sunday and Brother Olsen called me Monday morning at 9 am and requested assistance, lol! So since Tuesday it's been the great dress marathon around here, as he had this week off of work and was hoping to finish it up.

Blair mentioned that that the dress was a Marie Antoinette style gown. I thought, cool, that sounds neat. (Her dress is the one on the left.) And then when I saw the pattern I quickly realized this is definitely the most complicated thing I've ever sewn. It's actually two parts, a bodice with an attached skirt that is pulled up on the inside with loops and ribbon to make it pouffy on the sides, and then an under petticoat with an attached ruffle. The bodice has boning in it and we had to adjust it to make it two inches higher so Blair wouldn't be falling out of the thing, (Dad was very happy I knew how to adjust that part of the pattern!)

I'm happy to say I think we have managed to conquer it, despite really crummy instructions. Today, (four days and 30 hours of work later), we have the bodice and over skirt together. The Olsen's took the dress home, and will hem the skirt and sew the petticoat. They may be back for a final fitting and placing the hooks and eyes on the front of the bodice. I'm pretty proud of myself because honestly, this was a doozey of a dress. It was actually kind of fun, I know I'll never end up making something quite like that again, (unless of course I end up with a daughter with a penchant for period costumes), so it was really cool to see it come together. The Mom, Sister Olsen, came every day and helped look after the boys while we worked. I think the real benefit for me, other than the happiness of being able to help someone, was just getting to know the Olsen's better. They are a really nice family, and I'm impressed with how involved they are with their kids, how much they do for them, and in turn, what nice teenagers they have. Blair is a super nice girl, she's babysat for us, and she has to be one of the nicest girls in our youth program. In some ways I feel really blessed, by offering to help someone I actually received more than I gave: I've been quite lonely in many ways in the last six months and this really helped me make some friends from church that live in our town and that I actually have a fair amount in common with as far as life outlook and attitude. Funny how sometimes answers to prayers don't come the way you expect.