Okay, So Where's The Dress

Well, the dress didn't happen :( In order to explain, I'll first tell you a little story. 

Two years ago, one of our former exchange students was visiting from Italy along with his girlfriend. It was their last day in Chicago, so we were having a leisurely breakfast and enjoying our last few hours together when my husband called down and asked if I would come upstairs. He told me that he was not feeling well and was in pain. I asked if he needed to go to the hospital, and he said yes. Not like him at all, so I knew it was serious. Rather than call for an ambulance, I asked him if he thought he would be able to make it to our hospital which is downtown. He said yes. Our exchange student wanted to come along, so we all piled into the car. We were no more than 6 blocks away from home when my husband said, "I'm not going to make it." What does, "I'm not going to make it" mean to a  normal person???? Well, I took it to mean that I needed to get him somewhere fast or this would be his last day on earth. With thoughts flashing through my mind about what I should do, I immediately headed for the nearest hospital. I called a friend who is with the Chicago Fire Department and he's screaming at me to call an ambulance. But I felt that I would get him to the hospital before an ambulance would find us. He then started screaming for me to give him an aspirin. I was so frustrated, and I used some rather colorful words to explain that I didn't have an aspirin to give him. I do carry them in my purse now by the way.  I didn't stop at one stop sign, turned corners on 2 wheels and almost turned the emergency room door into a drive through, but I got him to the hospital where he was immediately admitted and his heart monitored. As it turned out, all of this.....for a kidney stone which he passed the next day.

Now back to the dress. I was busily working away when my husband came into my studio and told me that he was not feeling well. I immediately stopped what I was doing to monitor him. At one point, I thought I would be taking him to the hospital, actually calling for an ambulance this time, but he was finally able to rest and the pain and upset stomach passed, thankfully. He kept telling me that I should go work on my dress and that he could take care of himself. In the overall scope of life, he is far more important to me than a dress and besides that, I do have other dresses that I could wear and that's exactly what I decided to do.

So when I last showed you the dress, it looked like this, 

At the moment it looks like this. It's a wrinkled mess, but you can at least get an idea of where it's going.

 The back. I added godets to the back seams for ease of walking and dancing.

So what did I wear? My tried and true Starry Night dress. I wore it 3 years ago, so long enough for people to forget and if they didn't, well, too bad. I actually received a number of compliments on the dress.
You can see that I'm still sporting my natural curly hair. The nice thing about it is that I just wash it and let it dry. The bad thing is that it takes forever to dry. I'm not complaining though!

When I initially made the dress, I made the fascinator to go with it.

There's quite a bit going on in such a small piece, feathers, ribbon, a few crystals to catch light.

 From the back. I added a strip of horsehair braid for bobbie pins.

All is not lost with the dress. I have another party this fall and the dress will be perfect. The good thing is that I will now have time to do a little more detailed post about the construction of the dress. I will also be making a fascinator to go with the dress, so I'll do a tutorial on that as well.
Note to self....Start a little earlier next time!!!!!