Wedding Dress???

I'm in the midst of a serious wedding gown crisis right now - or at least, I have been for about two days now, and only now am I seeing some kind of solution. I'm a knitter, not a seamstress (my sewing skills are merely decent), and the idea of making my own dress from scratch has become increasingly daunting. I do, however, want a dress that's unique and personalized - something I've put my own creativity into. The solution? Buy a simple dress and embellish it.

Sounds fairly simple, right? You would think so - unless you've been faced with buying a wedding dress yourself, in which case you will know that it is virtually impossible to get one under $300, new or used. And I'm a bride on a budget - which can be hard when you love beautiful clothes and long for the freedom to pick out the most opulent, stunning gown you can squeeze into. It doesn't help much that I want my dress to be MY dress - that is, I don't want to feel obliged to resell it after the ceremony. Call me sentimental.

So I fished around on OnceWed, Wore It Once, and Preowned Wedding Dresses and found some excellent gowns, but it wasn't until I took the more mainstream route and tried Amazon.com that I found what (I think) will be my gown. (I know it's technically a bridesmaid dress, but the ivory version would do just fine for a wedding dress. And I like the idea of my bridesmaids' dresses being similar in style to mine, which I could do here.) I'm going to wait for advice from my fashion consultant (my cousin Gretchen) before I make any decisions.

On a different note: here's my lovely engagement ring!!! -->
It was made by Etsian megangoldkamp and has a braided silver band with a fiery opal in the center. Unique and absolutely beautiful.

And here's my veil!

Etsy seller TessaKim just gave me permission to link to her site, so here's the lovely veil I mentioned.

Networking

One of my favorite parts of being an Etsy seller is the opportunity it provides to get in touch with other craftspeople and sellers. I'm not much of a joiner, Internet-wise; I finally broke down and set up a Facebook account last fall, but it's in my hamster's name, not mine, so it's basically an excuse to post cute pictures of him, "friend" other Facebook rodents, and provide a venue for my friends who seem to prefer to contact me via the social networking site instead of the old-fashioned way, aka email. But anyway - something about Etsy is just so comfy and welcoming and nice. It's like having thousands of potential friends who all share a love for the handmade.

I've been thinking about that lately as I've been searching Etsy for ways to make my wedding more handmade and personal. I'm already making my dress; I don't have the fabric yet, but I've already bought the dress pattern from McCall's:
http://www.mccallpattern.com/item/M5319.htm?tab=evening_prom_bridal&page=1
I want to make something like the picture on the left. It's simple and elegant - perfect, I think, for the Quaker meetinghouse where it'll be held. I'm hoping to find an ivory brocade fabric like the one shown in the picture. I've already bought my veil from - guess where? - Etsy; I've convoed the seller to ask permission to link to it here.

News from New York

State, that is - I am, at long last, up at Bard College visiting my fiance! He's here as a grad student, enrolled in their one-year-long MAT program. So far, we've been enjoying doing stuff around campus and exploring these lovely little New York towns like Red Hook and Tivoli (where they've got a sumptuous-looking yarn store, which Dan is going to take me to when we get the chance). Though this is technically a break for him, he has two 15-page essays due Friday. So while he's hard at work, so am I. Or, at least, I'm trying to be, Etsy-ing and working on getting this blog into some kind of shape.

So, as fall is fast approaching, I've been thinking of fun stuff I could do for Halloween. Halloween happens to be my favorite holiday, even though for the past few years I've done basically nothing for it. I even named my hamster, who I acquired last October, after the holiday. (As you can see, Halloween the hamster is immensely precious. He even has his own Facebook page, under his full name, Halloween Longfur Ruleman.)



As my first Halloween-the-holiday item, I crocheted a black spider-web scarf at lightning speed. I used a chunky wool/acrylic blend I had on hand and finished the whole thing in basically one day. I'm a knitter at heart, but that doesn't mean I can't love how fast crochet can go!






I also have a rather interesting dangly spider - also crocheted, incidentally - that I made for an Alchemy bid, which may be my next Halloween project; I might sell them in sets of three or five as party favors.








There's not a whole lot I can do until I get back home, however. Right now, I'm just enjoying being here!

Dad's Sweater, Take Two... and more reasons why I haven't been blogging or Etsy-ing much lately

1. My original sweater plan was a bit of a failure, so I frogged it and have begun again, this time following EZ's top-down epaulet sweater pattern that I mentioned before. I am now feeling much happier about myself, even though I should probably get started on some fall and winter stuff for the store. I might put that off until I'm back from visiting my love in New York state.


2. I have a regular job now :D
3. I have rapidly become obsessed with planning my wedding, which is set to take place next summer. (Below: my wedding notebook.)

Question: Why have I, a person who normally hates organizing events of any kind, especially those that involve other people (more people = more complications) , become so enamored with the wedding-planning process that I can devote several hours per day to it without getting remotely sick of thinking about ivory satin and buttercream cupcakes?
Answer: I have absolutely no idea.

Well, that's not entirely true. I've become enthralled with the magic of it all, now that I'm facing my own marriage to my best friend, the man I love and want to share the rest of my life with.

(Below: Magazine cutouts in my wedding notebook.)

Hence my fixation on the event. I used to think it was silly the way women would make themselves crazy over trying to ensure that their "special day" would be perfect, but now I've been sucked in. Through the planning process, I'm channeling all the excitement and joy I'm feeling towards marrying Dan. Even if I could afford it, I wouldn't hire a wedding consultant - I wouldn't want to miss a single moment of this.