(More of the Two Gardens, Two Goats, Four Dresses and a Wedding story. We’re picking up at the part after I left off sewing dresses for a wedding to try my hand at raising goats.)
Eventually, of necessity, I did focus on my seamstress work, limiting my recesses with the goats and my gardens. Leah (my sister) not only entrusted me with the project that I had so enthusiastically volunteered for, she insisted on paying me for it. Which upped the ante. I racked my brain as I sewed, trying to access any seamstress wisdom I’d accumulated over the years. I measured and remeasured. I dyed (silk for the bridesmaid’s dresses…which was very rewarding, by the way, a pleasant surprise). I lined, double lined, reinforced, installed boning. I had epiphanies (devising tulip sleeves for an entirely sleeveless, strapless wedding gown, for instance). Finally, I took the nearly finished dresses to Leah’s a week early, wanting to be sure everything Fit…yes, Perfectly. Pride before the fall.
It looked like the dresses were working. They seemed to fit Leah’s lovely daughters, and Leah too. So I finished them up, while Leah lived in her garden. No kidding; she was a permanent, rather grimy resident. Crack of dawn to impenetrable night-time (and when she had lunch, none of us could say) she was laboring in her gardens, pulling weeds, cutting edges, spade-tucking in last minute spots of floral color. Her kids thought she was crazy, but I got it. I knew what she was up to. I would go pretty far to hand any of my daughters the gift of a perfect wedding day (perfection continually seduces me…I so want to believe in it).
Anyway. After a very late night, after I’d hand sewn the lining inside the bodice of the wedding dress, we took it next day to a bridal shop so Chandler could try it on with a crinoline (a poufy petticoat). We had to take our shoes off to go in the dressing room—a rule meant to protect the Perfect, flawless wedding dresses on display all around us. I was lacing Chandler up the back when Leah asked, “um, is there supposed to be a seam here?” I left my post to investigate, and saw, oh horror, that a chunk of bodice had somehow been caught in one of the seams I’d adjusted the day before, trying to get just a little closer to Chandler’s waist. Which distorted the entire dress. Not only that, but the neckline was gaping. Not only that, but there was bunching beneath the bust. Not only that, but I’d missed some gathering threads; they were showing at the top of her skirt. Not only that, but I’d actually, somehow, managed to sew not one but two straight pins in between all the layers of the bodice. How? Why? (oh why oh why oh why)? I was sick with despair, regret, shame. I had presumed to actually, all by myself, make a For-Real Wedding Dress. And had taken that flight of fancy with Chandler’s (and Leah’s) big event. We were not quite a day and a half away from Chandler’s nuptials; far too late to do anything else for a dress. I was sure I had ruined her wedding. But Chandler was chipper (after all, her groom was clearly present in the very next room, entertaining the shop ladies as he insisted he’d be renting a kilt), and Leah seemed to believe that the dress problems were mere glitches, easy enough to either solve or live with. (!!!! barring the pins?). 
After I cast a neutral vote on the crinoline (Chandler rented it but didn’t wear it), I slipped out of the boutique and cried—bitterly— in the parking lot. On my cell phone, to Frank. Poor guy.
Before we returned to Leah’s, I bought a small wedge of cheese. Missing the comfort of goats (ok, yeah, and self-medicating).
And then, back to work–what else could be done? All night. Leah stayed up with me for moral support and good company (eventually she rolled up in a quilt on the kitchen floor) while I tried to correct my mistakes. I tucked elastic in the neckline. I disemboweled the bodice, ripping out misguided seams, fishing out straight pins, picking out gathering stitches, and finally, breathlessly, sewing it all back together. Praying the whole time that if I spent every possible effort to fix everything I could, God would see to the rest.
While the dress looked way better after our all night repair session, I think that if God’s hand was anywhere—and it always is somewhere, it was in the eye of the beholder. And in the bloom of the bride. I could still see flawed seamstressing, but everyone else…bride, mother of the bride, groom, father of the bride, sisters and aunts and grandma of the bride… was delighted. Which was the point, after all.
I would do it all again, I think. I learned so much; I’d like to give it another try.
