Update and A Small Gothic Fashion Frustration.

Things are still rather nuts. The imperative sense of scrambling seems less intense. I still do not know if my Dad is going to make it to the wedding. He is still waiting for news on his end, but with every day that drags on, the less time I have to call the airline and make changes to the tickets. 

We still have not signed a lease with our apartment complex. We went in this last weekend to do so and give them Amanda's 401k information -which they can't use against us anyway because she hasn't been contributing to it- and the lady in the office said she didn't know why they had us down to sign a lease when they have some sort of paperwork done yet. Wow, really?! So we made yet another appointment for this coming weekend to sign the lease then. 

Amanda's Mom came last weekend as well. We got our car from the mechanic and it runs nicely. As soon as she gets paid, we'll take it back to emissions testing and get it tagged so its legal to drive again.

Also last weekend we did some wrap up wedding shopping. That was a bit overwhelming and exhausting, but it is done. All that is left are a few things from Amazon and Amanda and I need to finish making the decorations. Well, and writing our vows. Amanda's freaking out a little. I'm... not? Perhaps that's because I've spent the last several months in a state of high stress and fear and this crap with my parents and the apartment has been enough to make the actual wedding stress look like a vacation. I mean I've cried over the possibility that my Dad might not be at my wedding and thus all the wedding pictures are going to be permanent evidence and a reminder forever of that- which conflicts with all the happy-fuzzy feelings I should be completely swept up in for that day- which only pisses me off and makes me want to cry all over again because its not fair to Amanda that I'm so fucking depressed over it. I've tried to say fuck it, whatever, but I can't help the way I feel without stuffing everything down so far that I go numb again. *sigh* I really need to get the fuck over this. 

Because I am pear shaped and fat, finding a wedding dress that I liked and would fit me was never going to happen.  I would have had to make it or find someone to make one for me both of which was going to be more expensive than we could afford. If one were to go by semi-standard US sizing, my hips need a 5x but my shoulders need a 2/3x. Trust me, it sucks. I like Victorian and military goth styles A LOT and my shape doesn't always accommodate that, unless tailored right.

So, Amanda and I hit Torrid to find something. She found a pretty red and black Snow White dress and I found a formal-ish, plain black dress. Because its fall and we're having an evening wedding, there is a good chance it will be chilly, so I was going to need something for my shoulders. Well, no one really makes patterns in my size for what I was looking for. So, I did the next best thing and bought a costume pattern in the biggest size I could find and got on the internet to see how to upsize it. The bolero circled in yellow in the picture above, is the pattern I used. I nixed the collar and took the points off the red part of the sleeves. I also did away with sleeve gathers and still had to tailor the damned thing to fit my shoulders because they are small. I found a velvety burnout damask fabric in black so, its black, not blue and red like the picture. I also bought a broach/necklace to finish it off. You will have to wait for the wedding pictures to see it. I haven't even tried it on with the dress yet. 

I want to make another one, a couple actually, just not with the same fabric. The teeth that move fabric along on the my sewing machine didn't like the fabric very well and tried to eat it. That was several small fits of panic. And, now that I know how to upsize a pattern and actually have a handle on sewing sleeves, I would like to venture out into other pieces of clothing. But that will have to wait until after I make Amanda's cloak, until after the wedding, and possibly even until after winter.