The TOP SECRET Dress Project

Welcome readers!  I know many of you are still recovering from MPB Day festivities, but we must move forward nonetheless.  A buffered aspirin is good for most headaches but rashes that persist for more than a few days should be checked out by a doctor.

Friends, there is so little I can say about my next sewing project that it almost isn't worth writing about.  But I'm going to try.

As many of you know, since March I have been contributing weekly blog posts to a certain commercial sewing website.  I've rarely mentioned them here mainly because they were usually rewrites of material already posted on Male Pattern Boldness and I lived in constant terror that they would figure this out; nine times out of ten I didn't even change the title.

Anyway, for said website, I will soon be leading a sew-along.  I'm very excited about it, and I can guarantee that all material will be fresh, or as fresh as anything I post ever is.

As you can imagine, I am very reluctant to say too much, and yet I feel it is my responsibility to keep my readers informed.  I think when people we're close to keep things from us, on a certain level, we know it.  An old therapist said to me (she wasn't old, she's just no longer my therapist. In fact, I have no therapist -- do you think I need one?) that your secrets are your sickness -- about as original as the posts I reran on the aforementioned website, most likely, but nonetheless, I've remembered it to this day.

That is why I am an open book -- indeed, you might wish I closed it more often.  I just can't.  Parenthetically, I was shocked by some of the probing questions I received from MPB Day attendees, questions I wouldn't even ask myself, though I've started asking and I'm very uncomfortable with the answers.  But I digress!

Here's what I (think I) can tell you about this top secret project.  We'll be following a dress pattern of their choosing.  It's a downloadable pattern.  They've provided me with the fabric (which I got to choose from a top secret catalog) and notions, but I still had to download the pattern and print it myself -- which I'm still a little bitter about.  There I go: I've said too much again!

I think I can share the following images with you without putting myself at risk, but please don't pass these around or repost them on your blogs or link them to my Wikipedia page!

Here's the pattern.  It only looks like a short novel.



The biggest secret of all, friends, is that this dress is not for Cathy.  It's for New York actress Leah X  (Not her real name).   Leah X is quite a bit younger than Cathy, quite a bit slimmer than Cathy, and --  now don't shoot the messenger -- quite a bit prettier than Cathy.

She's also doesn't give me attitude.

Here's the pattern, which I started taping together early last week and finally finished on Friday, now ready to be cut.  Have you ever taped one of these patterns together?  You know those famous Byzantine mosaics in Ravenna, Italy?  I'll say no more.



I shouldn't show you the fabric.  I musn't.  Maybe what I'll do is post a pic and leave it up for a few hours and then delete it.  Pretty, no?

As with all downloadable patterns from this website, you have to add the seam allowances yourself, which I can live with.  You also have to add almost all the other information as well.  In the end, this actually forces you to pay more attention, so it's a good thing.  Please don't ask me about the instructions.



Since I'm making this for Leah but have limited access to her -- though I do have her measurements -- I'm making a muslin of the bodice and using 1" seam allowances just in case.  You'll notice I've also traced the original pattern pieces onto yellow tracing paper -- no way am I downloading that pattern again!



Here's the bodice muslin.  Leah is coming by late this afternoon for a fitting.  Shhhhh!



Readers, I must stop here.

There may be more information about this tomorrow.  Or not.  If you don't hear word from me in the next few days, please, please go to the authorities.  Give them this code: 4591117!!!   (The exclamation points are part of the code, not a commentary on it.)

They'll know what to do.

Any sewing secrets to share?  (We won't tell -- promise!)

Happy Monday, everybody!

PM UPDATE:  So far, so good.  Moving forward, this project will be referred to as "Aunt Hilda."  If you must ask me about it, a simple "How's your Aunt Hilda?" will suffice.   I'll know what you're talking about, as my real Aunt Hilda has been dead for decades.