Thursday, July 30, 2009

OK, I am at Mary Jo’s and need to be at my nieces in two hours, that gives me an hour to get what I need and head up to Concord. I figure this should be pleanty of time as I already have a piece of the silk taffeta and they have such wonderful lace I should be out of here in an hour. Reality Check! Nothing ever goes as planned. First, we couldn’t find the same silk taffeta that I had picked up about a month ago on my swatch gathering trip. (Mental note: Always write down the manufacturer and style number of the swatch I won't do this again!) She searches the entire table which has to be 20 feet long and piled about 4 bolts deep of every kind of wedding silk you can imagine, but of course not my silk taffeta. They have it in white but no ivory. So she goes upstairs to see what they have in stock. While she is gone searching, I figure I will check out the lace. They have the Alencon pattern that I saw online, it is really beautiful, but what are these yellow spots all over it! This is awful as this fabric is $95 per yard. I ask what this is and Alencon lace is a re-embroidered lace. They take a shiny thin cord and attach it to outline the lace pattern. I guess when they came to the end of a piece of cord to prevent it from unraveling, they dabed on a little glue. The glue had yellowed, how awful; I won’t be buying this piece!! I continue to look. Their supply of Alencon lace is really getting low and the girl tells me that they will not be ordering any more. I guess their supplier was not going to make it anymore so they bought everything that the supplier had left and when it is gone, it is gone. I continue to look. Not having too much success in finding a 36” piece that goes with the border pieces. So I begin to look at the beaded options. Anna doesn’t really want a lot of beads on her gown but there aren’t really a lot of beads on the lace, and there isn’t a lot of lace on the gown so maybe she would go for this. I find some beautiful stuff but can’t find two kinds to go together. Oh No, Dress 911! Can you believe it, we have looked at this fabric for years, gawked, drooled, wished, dreamed and here we are ready to pay and I can’t find anything that is going to work! This means more internet research. I really don’t want to make a purchase like this over the internet. The lady returns from the stock area with an unopened bolt of silk taffeta I get excited. We unroll it and it is too light in color and actually quite a bit heavier than the silk taffeta that I had originally purchased. I want the lighter weight one as there are so many puffs on the dress and 37 yards of fabric would be better if the fabric felt like air. Oops! I’m going to be late. I thank the clerk for all her help and leave for Shawna’s house, I am a bit disappointed, but not discouraged, I know I will find the perfect fabrics!