Black tie smackdown

We have a niecewedding coming up in Bowral in a week, and I thought I had my outfit sorted. It was either going to be this:



Or the dress I wore to the brotherwedding in Brisbane last year:



Both very fine frocks to wear to a garden wedding in Bowral on a Saturday afternoon at 3 pm, I thought. I neglected the "black tie" note on the invitation. I mean - if the family hasn't understood that in 12 years of marriage I am still going by my maiden name and why I get upset when invites get sent to some woman called Michelle with a last name I have never used, then why should I pay attention to anything that says "black tie"? it's not as if I was going to wear jeans.

Apparently my mother-in-law pays attention. Even though I told her black tie is for weddings that take place after 4.30 pm, she believes that all ladies should be in a floor length ball gown and men should be in bow ties. She also would prefer if we still believed it was 1932. I read my ettiquette websites, where they stated that dresses could also be short or long cocktail, decided to opt for a cocktail dress instead.

As for the bow tie, I've told my husband he'll be going alone if he wears one.

That conversation was on Sunday and sent me into a mad panic. As crass as I am about this black tie business, I don't actually own a cocktail dress. The brotherwedding dress is about as classy as I get, but given my job also means I have to work at some classy events, I figured if I could find a nice cocktail frock online to buy, it wouldn't be wasted.

Two online-bought dresses later, and a two hour trip to the mall one lunchtime, and I realised the only way I was going to get a decent dress that was comfortable, had nice fabric and fitted well was to bloody well sew it myself.



Enter Simplicity 2247 - Amazing Fit. On Monday night I basted together a wearable muslin to see if the shape would suit me.



It did suit me, but I had an annoying problem around the chest where it was too big. I may have used the wrong cup size pattern (I used DD because that's what I am, when in fact if I'd measured myself as per instructions, I would have found out I was a C in a size smaller.  Go figure.)



I'm going to experiment with taking in the underarm seam, and the shoulder seam. Otherwise I'll recut to go down to a C cup (I think the bodice will be too short then, however).

And then I'm going to cut into this.



Yes, tonight at Spotlight I found the perfect fabric, thanks to a friend who came with me to help out. I was getting quite depressed as all the "after 5" fabrics seemed to be spotted taffettas and boxer-short quality satins. Then she found this polyester backed lace, and in my favourite colour of deep red. It's almost the same fabric as my favourite Igigi dress which I would have bought if it had been available in my size. It has a little spandex in the fabric, so the stretch is very similar to the cotton sateen my wearable muslin is in.



So this weekend I get to sew. Right in the middle of OWOP (One Week, One Pattern), with a pattern that is not my OWOP one. A little warped, but wish me luck!

P.S Yes, I did write "polyester" and "perfect" in the same paragraph.

P.P.S I seem to be sewing to a deadline. This is the first time this has happened since this declaration and I'm not too sure I'm going to be able to cope.