So Close

My neck hurts and my back aches. My fingers have pulled skin all over them. My eyes are tired and sitting is a chore. Over the course of the week-end I have slowly and steadily inflicted this soreness on my body. Tomorrow night, I shall have one last go before giving myself a break for the time being.

I have spent the week-end working on my dress. It was the week-end of buttons. This dress has fifteen buttons down the front. I had to practise button holes until I found the right size. I then had to put fifteen buttonholes down the front - trying to keep them at right angles to the seam and parrallel to the floor. I was hunched over my sewing machine trying to ensure that all button holes started and ended the same distance away from the edge. My machine did a few hiccups. I was stuck ripping out black stiching out of black fabric - both cotton so that the texture did not assist me in any way in determining what was what. My eyes were not happy.

I ran out of thread and had to buy more Saturday morning. I had the sleeves checked and recieved the green light to sew them in place.

Then I started on the buttons. I had to check the placement of each and every button - to the hole and to the edge. I hunched over even more over my work, straining my neck and jabbing the needle into my index fingers. I've heard people say that when running, you reach a pace and even though you're tired it's more effort to stop then to keep going. I have a buttoning pace. You keep going through sheer determination.

When the last button is sewn in place, there is no release through relief. Instead, you put the garment on with shaking hands, hoping that everything is correctly placed and that the garment fits. Fit is a multi layered word. There is that which fits and there is that which fits correctly and there is that which looks as though is was made only for you. The last one fits.

My dress fits. Looking at myself in the mirror, I was impressed. Not with the work and the effort that had gone into the garment, but at my reflection. There are some things that you try on in a store and you can't leave them on the rack. I have a few items that were just so right that they had to come home. Looking in the mirror, I saw a dress that I would have bought and paid dearly for, so that it could belong to my wardrobe. Except that this time, I could say that I had created it.

Tomorrow I shall hem it with tiny stiches. I would do it now except that my neck and back couldn't take it. Tomorrow night I shall ache all over.

The next day, however, my back will be straight, my head will held high and I shall hide my hands by my side. With no effort, I shall walk ten feet tall.

I shall be wearing my dress!