2 pc & a biscuit - 3 lessons

One thing about joblessness is that all the extra time you have goes towards body criticism that you wouldn't have had the time for or would not have even noticed if you had a job. Prior to the start of my job, I was feeling quite chunky. I imagine that my frequent cravings for chicken fried steak didn't help matters.

In my experience, any stressful situation brings some kind of weight loss either through the lack of ability to eat regularly, or something of the like. Also, for some reason, I just get fatter in San Antonio. Anyway...

My sister is getting married! And all of her sister's get to be bridesmaids!


Don't we all look happy? I find that I look rather jobless (chunky), but also, my dress was suppose to look like this:


Let me just say, I think the gathering at the waist was too extreme and added too much puff. All of the extra tulle did not help. Among other things you notice, my sister in the middle seems like a bit of the oddball out.

Lesson #1: To the hospitable bride...

My eldest sister's approach to her wedding was to take everything that irritated her about weddings and not do that. So, in addition to paying for the bridesmaid dresses she also let us pick out the style and only required that the color be the same.

Initially, I picked out a short taffeta dress, Irene picked out the longest chiffon dress and Elie picked out the tea length satin dress. Mine came out longer and more puffy than expected. Elie's dress was actually made of taffeta too and Irene's dress...there is no chiffon with a sheen, at least not with this dress so hers looks different. Hence this is the extreme that results from too much freedom on the bridesmaids side.

Really, if a bride wants to be hospitable, it should be one or the other. Let us pick our dresses and make us pay, or make us wear the same dress and (the bride) pay for it. Also, pick the color AND the material. It'll save a lot of tears later. My elder sister lucked out and got two dresses out of the deal.

Lesson #2: Seriously, take advantage of custom measurements and get seamstress measurements

I told my (bride) sister that and she ended up just taking her own measurements and her dress came out looser than expected. If you're going to go custom with the measurements, have a seamstress do it.

Among other things, take advantage of custom measurements if you can. Not only did my dress come out ridiculously long, it was severely puffy. I put too much trust in the standard sizes. So my dress is in the works, I ripped it up and re-pinned the skirt:

even then, I decided that my dress was still too puffy and I ripped it up more and tore out the tulle:


and now it's pretty much where I want it to be. I still need to sew it, and hand sewing really sucks, but at least everything else is ready. The dress even looks more like the original and the puffy-ness is now more from the gathering at the waist than any of the leftover tulle inside. Man, I look like crap in both of those pictures.

Would there have been a way to get a puffy-ass bubble hem shortened and also the tulle ripped out of the puff for less than $50? Only if grandma were home.

Lesson #3: Be wary of ordering times

The bride to be was rather eager to get these dresses out of the way, so she bought them while I was unemployed and taking out my depression on chicken fried anything. My presumption was that I was going to remain at my current chunk, or at least close to it, so I went one size larger since the smaller size seemed too tight and the larger size seemed like it would fit fine. The tufts of cloth at the sides will tell you otherwise. What was even worse was coming back to Austin, getting a job and losing more chub. Just when I thought I'd actually have to go to the tailors on this one, I found that the easier route to getting the dress to fit: a 2 piece & a biscuit

heck yeah!

$5 for fried chicken is way better than $55 for alterations on a dress I'm not going to wear very often. So that's the plan, before the wedding - a 2pc & a biscuit.

Those boots were made for walkin'...(smirk)

In my teaching classes, there is one teacher who was recruited from the city school district. She knows how to effortlessly pull off the "Teacherly appropriate awesomely cute" look. I'll admit, I get jealous. I walk the fine line of looking good, but effortless? It's hard.

This teacher has got the body for it too. She's slender, but also fairly tall. I am stubby with a high calf to ankle ratio - upside down bowling pins essentially.

I couldn't help but smirk when I saw her in the morning. It's been cold lately and she wore a pencil skirt with boots - that were too loose around the calves. Boots worn with a skirt should be fitted around the calves or else you lose any long lines and you look like you're walking in buckets. In all honesty, I'm sure not many people noticed, but it's nice to see a faux pas on someone like that once in a while.

With thighs like these...

I felt it a good time to reflect upon an untouched problem of the modern woman. By now you should know my obsession with clothing organization books: coordination, what should be in a wardrobe, what colors look good on you, shapes - yes, closet self help. Every time I go to a book store, that is my first stop.

So far through my extensive skimming, there's never been a comment on how pants should fit around the thighs. I generally try to get pants with little stretch in them since more spandex allows my thighs to look like packs of polenta. Does that necessarily make less stretch better? I give a new definition to the term "sausage packing." It's always "fitted through the leg..." What the heck is fitted through the leg suppose to mean anyway?

I think I would have little trouble finding support for saying that thighs are definitely one of the more variable parts of a woman's body. They have a size of their own. mine are probably about a size 2, they'd fit most comfortably in a size 4, unfortunately I'm a size 0 everywhere else and while I know that tailors can take in waists: 1.) that's hella expensive 2.) there's no telling how it's going to look when they're done. I've been toying with the idea of getting a pair of wide legs and having the legs taken in. I'm not too sure on how that will work out, but at least the thighs will fit.