The Big Show (My Year in Review–Finale)

Let's skip to Saturday, April 26, the week before the fashion show. By now I was totally operating in panic mode. I met the last of my models that afternoon; fortunately her dress needed only a very small alteration–but it still needed its lining and zipper put in too. Aaaaaah! I worked all day Saturday starting at about 6:00 a.m.–doing alterations and zippers, cutting out linings and putting them together–and stayed up working until about 3:00 a.m.

Back pain.

At the beginning of the sewing project I was cleaning my sewing room in between every dress I made. During this last week that tidiness flew right out the window. (And I took these pictures the day after the show. Believe me, I was not playing with the camera that week!)

 
On Sunday morning I got up around 8:00 (I slept in!), got ready and went to church in the afternoon, and almost fell asleep in church. I was either going to sleep or cry through church, so I went home after sacrament meeting–theoretically to take a nap,  but I actually spent a little time on the computer working on Portfolio stuff before I crashed.

I slept for about an hour or so, then got up and made dinner for the family. I think I made dinner that day.  Hmmmm . . .  Well if I did, it was the last time I cooked dinner that week. I don't usually work on Sundays–not even schoolwork–but that night I was so antsy about my projects that I broke my rule and worked in my personal sweat shop from about 7:30 or so until after midnight. (When I found myself just staring into space for very long periods of time I decided I'd be better off getting some sleep.)

Back and shoulder pain.

Fabrics, dress-bags, pattern pieces, boning, scraps, pins . . . you name it . . . everywhere!

Monday went the same as Saturday; got up around 5:30 a.m. and sewed until around 1:30 a.m.  Tuesday the same, except I stayed up past 3:30 a.m. because my photo shoot was on Wednesday. I got Rio's dress almost finished, and Lindsey's dress finished; I finished hemming the red dress, finished Erika's dress, and started on the red silky tank-top for the photo shoot. So after rolling into bed at about 3:30 a.m. Wednesday, I got up at 6:30 (and I was one unhappy girl!) so I could get all my stuff together, drive our carpool to school, and get to Cathy's house for the photo shoot.  Fortunately the photo shoot was tons of fun and I actually felt awake and pleasant.  But the drive home–stopping to pick up two carpools along the way–was a little scary. I was riding with my windows down, arm out the window, trying to keep up a conversation with Michael . . . whatever I could to stay awake.

At home I unpacked my stuff, gave Bruce a review of the photo shoot and then went back to my room full of straw, where I missed a dance concert that Lindsey was in that night, and I stayed up until after 1:00 a.m. again.

Constant, non-stop back, neck and shoulder pain. I was living on ibuprofen.

I have a major clean-up job ahead!

Thursday, up at 5:00 a.m.  I sent out a desperate plea on facebook for anyone who could help me to please come help hem dresses and tack down linings. Only my very good friend Scerinda was able to come; she stayed with me from about 10:00 p.m. until midnight.  And my lovely sister Melanie came and took things to her house where she stayed up all night hemming and tacking down linings.  I was so tired I wanted to cry, and Bruce told me I should go to bed, but I knew that if I did I wouldn't finish everything.  So I stayed up. I was working a little slower than usual, but I was getting things done.  I kept thinking that if I could just finish this one more thing (I don't remember what the thing was now) then I could go get a little sleep. At 6:00 a.m. Friday the one thing still wasn't done. At 6:30 I was sitting at the sewing machine winding a bobbin and I fell asleep and was dreaming while my foot was still on the pedal and the bobbin was spinning. I think I woke up when the bobbin stopped.  At that point I knew I had to get at least a little sleep; I figured if I slept for an hour it wouldn't put me much more behind than I was already.

So at 7:00 a.m. I went to bed and feel right asleep (nothing like severe sleep deprivation to cure insomnia!).  And I startled awake at 8:00 a.m.  I was disoriented and afraid I'd slept until after noon or something terrible like that, but my clock said something like 8:06. Whew.

Severe back, shoulder and neck pain, and a headache too.

A make-shift pincushion. After the show Bruce refused to sit in this chair until he'd cleaned it off himself.

I dragged my tired, unshowered, dirtily-clad, unbrushed-teeth self back to the sewing room and got back to work. Melanie showed up and gave me the work she'd finished and then she had to go to work.  I recruited Michael and Lindsey to tack down linings and work on hems; Melanie came back a couple hours later to help some more.  You have to understand that two of these dresses have hems that are about 28 feet in circumference (which also means they had linings with about 20-foot circumferences)–and several other dresses had hems that were not much smaller–and I wanted to hem them all by hand so they'd look fabulous. Sadly, I did resort to machine-hemming some of them (and they don't look as nice. :-(  (Now that the pressure is off, I might redo some of them.)

And on top of all this craziness I still had one dress that was completely unfinished. I hadn't been able to get the shoulder-drape pattern to work, I didn't have time to re-call my model and work on it with her, and this dress was just sitting in the disaster that used to be a nice sewing room waiting for me to do something with it. I ended up just making a hem and a lining (I still had to cut out that lining at 11:30 that day) and calling it good enough.  So I was supposed to be at the venue for the show by 2:00 p.m., but I was just getting into the shower at 1:45.

This is where we had the show. I don't know why I can never remember the name of this place.

Lindsey and I left the house after 2:00, picked Bruce up from work, and headed up to the fashion show. I hemmed my jacket on the way there. When we got there I grabbed my sewing kit and a skirt, found a quiet corner and started basting a super-cheap, eight-year-old-beginning-sewer hem on the lining.

There I am, sewing in my corner. That's Heidi, the production class instructor. And below her is the awful hem I was making. Seriously, this is a bad, bad hem!

Once Lindsey and I were settled in, and the dresses were all inside and hung on a rack, Bruce came to tell me he was leaving to get the other kids for the show. Then I had a meltdown. I didn't want him to leave me alone; I felt stupid even being there; who was I fooling anyway–I'm not a designer!; my dresses weren't finished and I was doing a cheap, jury-rigged job to show them; I did not want him to go. But of course I knew he had to, and Lindsey was there (until they called her in for makeup). So he went and I sat working in my corner.

Lindsey gets her hair done

I felt better when Cherylene showed up with her sewing machine so she  could keep working too.

Cherylene at her sewing machine, finishing her last look.

And I felt much better when I had things done enough that they at least looked good on the outside.  By then it was about 5:30 or so. I changed into the nicer clothes I'd brought for the show, put makeup on, and felt like a tired old cow. But I got to chat with Lindsey and my Collections friends and my models a little bit, and I felt more relaxed.

models, designers and crew in the "green room"

Lindsey with Cherylene's final model Indie Skies. He is 7'5" when he has his heels on.

the audience awaits

Bruce and the kids showed up a little after 6:00; around 6:15 to 6:30 I got to go help my models dress and arrange the lineup for my show.

It's almost time . . .

Heidi gives my lovely models some last-minute instructions.

I only had one last worry. After all my models walked, I was supposed to go out on the stage with them and . . . what? Take a bow? I was afraid I'd look like a clumsy duck bowing, and I didn't want to. In fact, I didn't really want to make an appearance at all. Anyway, I asked someone what I should do and she said, "Just wave like the Queen of England." So I did. Well, it was more of a Miss America wave.

Starting with this one, here are the dresses in the order they appeared on the runway.

When I posted this picture on facebook a friend of mine commented that  I looked so confident and in my element. I'm glad I looked that way,  because I didn't feel it at all!

After we all took our bows, I went backstage to help undress some of my models, made sure my dresses were all hung up, and I got to watch the rest of the show. Yay!  My friends had some really great designs. At intermission I had a couple of people (not just my mom!) tell me that they loved my line. After intermission I had a really hard time staying awake for the rest of the show–I saw it, but it didn't really register. Until Cherylene's circus showed up. I don't think anyone could have slept through that! :-)

I met Mojdeh (the head of the fashion department) and a lot of my instructors after the show, who all said my line was really beautiful and it looked as if I'd "found myself." So it was really nice, I felt pretty successful, I caught a little of a second (third? fourth? ten-thousandth?) wind, and headed for home feeling pretty good after all.

On the way home we stopped at the grocery store to pick up something for a very late dinner (we were at the store at 11:30). It was a good thing I had a shopping cart to lean on for most of the trip; when I tried to walk on my own I was staggering like a drunk.  We got home, the kids started cooking dinner, I went into my room to change into my pajamas and somehow ended up face-planted on the bed with my feet hanging off the side. I was mostly asleep instantly. Around 12:20 I woke up enough to grab a few bites to eat and sit staring at a banana smoothie in my hand for a few minutes. Then back to bed and sleep, glorious sleep.

So the fashion show was fun after all. And, I have to confess, I might even want to do something like that again. Later.

But for now I owe thank-yous to everyone who helped me so much: to Rio, who organized my photo-shoot, Sophie who did the makeup, and Alex who was my photographer; to all of my beautiful models who made the clothes look so great; to my great instructors in school these past four years–I really learned a lot; to Eugene who stepped back and let us work but was always there to help when we needed him; to my friends in the Collections class who helped us all keep going when we didn't want to; to Cherylene who kept saying that we started this together and we'd finish together (and we did!); to Melanie and Scerinda who offered lots of moral support and even helped me sew; to all my kids who put up with Mom going to school for four years and were essentially motherless for most of the month of April; and especially to Bruce who encourages me in everything I do and doesn't complain about how crazy I can get.

You are all awesome! Thank You!!