A Different Creative Outlet

A few weeks ago, Mrs. Dirpus and I were at the mall with our youngest daughter trying to find a new dress for her to wear to her sixth grade promotion. There was nothing that conformed both to what she wanted and what we would allow her to wear. "No you may not buy that dress from the young street walker collection!"

Finally, as Mrs. Dirpus was about to strike the young one dead, she asked me if I could make her a dress. A little taken aback, I said "Sure". The two of them went out later and bought a bunch of stuff and brought it home and I made a dress out of it. Everyone was happy with the result and thought our daughter looked very cute.

Then, a week ago Friday, my wife asked if I could make her a new dress to wear to a Job's Daughters event last Friday for our oldest daughter. Mind you, I am wearing a tuxedo to this event. I told her that if I started that day, I probably could. So we went to the fabric store and looked at patterns. She settled on a nice formal dress after I said I could mix top B with bottom C. I didn't really know if I could or not, but I was pretty sure I could work something out.

So, we bought all this fabric and a pattern and brought it home a week before she needed to wear it. Let me tell you about that week. I spent all day Saturday in the recording studio. I worked my job Monday to Friday. The Sacramento Monarchs started a home stand (we have season tickets) and we went to games on Saturday, Tuesday, and Thursday nights. That left me Sunday, Monday and Wednesday nights, and Friday after I got home from work before we left for the event.

There were a few minor technical difficulties in Mrs. Dirpus' gown. Did you know that the sizes used in patterns aren't the same as the sizes women buy in the stores. After doing some measuring on Mrs. Dirpus and preparing the pattern, I realized I need to buy a new one in a different size. This eliminated any chance of working on the dress on Friday or Saturday. As I was almost done and doing a fitting, it was decided that one of the things in the dress made it not fit right. This required buying more fabric, ripping some seams and re-doing the lining of the dress. This took my entire Wednesday night. Fortunately, I got off work early on Friday and was able to finish it up with about three hours to spare. I think it turned out pretty well. The picture below shows Mrs. Dirpus and Dirpette #2 in their Dirpus creations.

Before three weeks ago, I had never made a dress. What do you think of my handiwork?