Flashback feelings - Chapter 2

Flashback on me in 1997. I've decided that I'm going to prom, and that I'm going to make my own dress. Some corseted princess-y styled dress, ironically the same type of dress that I'm trying to avoid for my wedding. Not for lack of loving the style, I just don't think it will fit in a beach setting (which is going to be talked about in a whole other chapter to come).

So there I am, sitting in the middle of my living room surrounded by pattern pieces and yards of black satin fabric. I've been staring at the same instruction for the last 45 min with no idea of how to actually execute it. Cut on bias. Bias. What the F is a bias?? *Breathe* and read instruction again. Cut. On. Bias. At this point I think I've tried to collect call my mom in Australia, though it's possible she was in Thailand at that point, memory fails me. My dad, who also sews a bit, was at work. None of my friends knew anything about sewing, and I'm about ready to ravage all of the fabric into shreds with my shears out of pure frustration. So I did what I do now when I can't figure something out, I jumped on the computer. Only then we didn't have cable internet, google, or the numerous amounts of websites dedicated to anything you can possibly imagine. No, I had dial-up and Lycos. I type in bias and after weeding through all of the definitions of bias and points of view, I find some unclear instructions and a slightly helpful illustration. None of which in the end actually helped me to execute the original instruction.

Which is where I'm at now. I feel like I have all of the instructions but no idea how, and little help to actually execute them. I feel like I'm turning to the internet again to find the answers, only to find the equivalent of the "slightly helpful illustration".

In the end of that flashback story, I didn't actually end up finishing the dress. The day before prom, my dad took me to the mall where I found a dress on the sale rack, that we still really couldn't afford, and was a size too big. It was not princess-y or corseted like I dreamed. But, it was pretty, I worked the hell out of it and I still had fun. Even though that story ended well, I still feel like I settled for something I didn't want, because it's what I had. I made the best of it. Well this is my wedding, and hopefully the only wedding I'll ever have. I don't want to settle.

I want to execute the instructions.

/end chapter