Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Fancy Duds

We're getting ready for a wedding.  Alec wants all of his brothers in tuxedos, and I know they will be so handsome!  We generally don't mind dressing up at our house.  We gathered up all the boys and high-tailed it over to the tux rental shop.  Oh wait.  I'm missing a part.  That's the part where we pulled out all the tuxes that we own, spread them all over the living room for a few days, made everyone try them all on, and after wondering why we have all these pieces that no one fits!, then we headed to the tux shop.

I just had to snap this picture of my oh-so-tall Ben, getting fitted for tuxedo pants.  The store people are more worried about getting the waist right, since the legs are more easily measured and hemmed.  How fancy are we, with our ankles hanging out, and our tennis shoes?  They had a nice soft chair I could loll in while the boys passed out threats if I laughed at their trying-tuxes-on-ing.  I didn't laugh, honest.  But I didn't make any promises about later.


Angle's outfit was less of a laughing matter.  Alec's finance and her mother picked out the pattern, purchased all the fabric, and all I had to do was sew it together.  "All I had to do..."  I spent the summer sewing a quilt for the happy couple, and my sewing machine was pooped out.  So instead of getting it serviced and the tension fixed, I sewed another project.  With rolled circular hems.  And skipped stitches and broken threads like crazy.  There may have been bad words and maybe even tears.  In then end, I had to beg my professional-seamstress sister-in-law to finish the last rolled him and insert the zipper, because the sewing machine and I are not on speaking terms any more.  

But the dress was beautiful, fancy enough to hold her own in the sea of formal black tuxedos.  Lovely enough to make a little girl feel like a princess.  Formal enough... to roll around in the grass while we were supposed to be taking portraits?  I guess that's just right for us.