Load Off My Mind

Wow. I cannot tell you how good I feel right now (well, if you ignore the 4-day headache, anyhow.) Mostly, I am just relaxed. A huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders.

Why, you ask? Well, I've kept meaning to blog about it, but have somehow never gotten around to the fact that I've been making my friend Red's wedding dress for the past 2.5 months. And just about an hour ago, I handed it off to be delivered to the bride. Freedom! Terrible freedom!

I have to admit, I've been fairly stressed about the whole process though (Me? Stressed? You jest!) Not only did I make the dress, but I designed it, too, so I get to worry about how it will be received (had I only made the dress, I could just shrug and say "her design" if folks didn't like it.) The dress has been sharing a house with a 4 year old and a cat this whole time too, which has felt a bit like having a ticking time bomb somewhere -- although I basically staked off a room of the house that was only accessible with my retinal scan to try and quell that fear. One of the fabrics used was a gorgeous two-tone silk chiffon (think expensive spiderwebs,) floated on gossamer wings -- but would snag or bruise if you so much waved a pin in the air near it. Plus there was this equation: the more completed the dress became multiplied by the decrease in time until the wedding equals the magnitude of catastrophic fuck-up-edness in any error on the dress (feel free to diagram that. I can totally do the x-y curve in my head) , which had a pretty high pucker factor. I used a lot of energy just worrying this whole time.

But, its out of my hands now. And really, if I stop an think about it, its all gonna be fine. Red is really the only one who has to like the dress, and in the midst of my explanation for why I thought particular features of this dress design were good, Red interrupted me and exclaimed,"You're amazing!", so I think we're covered there. The cat and the kid? They really could've cared less. Nightmare chiffon? Well, there are a few imperfections, but most of them are in places that should hopefully get very little attention, or at least not get attention until folks start to drink. :) Red was a very chill bride through the whole process, and she's a bit of a chatterbox so I was entertained through all of the fittings. And speaking of fittings, I finally get my Wednesday nights back, which had been lost since this all began.

Plus, I got a bunch of real-world experience (and how!), learned a few new things, and got another piece for my slowly-growing portfolio and resume. And I'm getting paid. :D

I'm not going to post any pictures of the design or actual dress until the wedding, because there are a few of you folks who may actually be at the wedding, and I don't want to steal Red's thunder. Well, that and I don't actually have any pictures yet. True to form, this was another fairly-close-to-the-deadline project (the wedding is Saturday afternoon,) so I should have some pics to post by early next week.

Until then, I'm gonna chill the fuck out and get some well-deserved down time.