Wedding Planning: Ryan's Journal
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This is the ivy pattern we're using on the chuppah. Ours will be done in two shades of gold to match the silk.
September 12th
There are now 18 days, 22 hours and 43 minutes left to go.
Well, we had a minor change of plans this weekend since on Saturday, Sara decided that it would be much more fun go to the hospital than to embroider the chuppah. I swear, some people will do anything to get out of work. But they pumped her full of drugs and so she was fine and only slightly groggy when we started our rescheduled sewing festival on Sunday. And before you think I'm a terrible person for dragging my sick friend out of bed to work on my wedding, I swear she WANTED to come. Really.
So instead of sewing on Saturday, Leigh and I stopped at Home Depot to get supplies for the chuppah hardware. We had them cut four 7 1/2 foot lengths of unfinished curtain rod stock for us, which was cool, but dragging two 16 foot pieces of wood to the cutting station was not the most graceful operation ever. We then bought four unfinished wood doo-dads that are supposed to screw onto the ends of curtain rods. I'm sure they have an actual name, which Leigh will probably inform me of when she reads this entry. Anyway, they'll be attached to the poles, and the chuppah will be tied onto them. We also bought some stain -- the color was "Special Walnut". I don't know what's so special about that walnut, but it's a nice dark brown. And then after we stain the wood, we just need to varnish it, screw the little doo-dads onto the poles, and that'll be it.
I also went to my first karaoke bar on Saturday. That was a weird experience. It really changes the feeling of a bar when everyone in the room has goal besides drinking and hitting on people. Also, the crowd was way more supportive than I expected. Terrible performances were quietly tolerated and politely applauded. And there were more good performances than I expected. A few too many musical theater stuff and ballads for my taste, but it was still fun. At least no one sang "On My Own". Or that awful song from The Little Mermaid. Ooh, speaking of musicals, have you heard that there's a musical of Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus? And did you know that I despise John Gray? Anyway, back to the wedding stuff.
So anyway, Leigh went to go pick Sara and her sewing machine up on Sunday, since she's not allowed to operate heavy machinery. Fortunately, the sewing machine is pretty light machinery. She did some test embroidery on the Beach Chuppah, and then she started embroidering the circle of ivy on the main panel of the chuppah. The ivy is a two-tone embroidery, and we're using a dark gold for the most of the leaf and a bright gold for the highlights. It matches the silk perfectly, especially since the silk itself is two-tone. She grouped the ivy so one unit of embroidery was two groups of three leaves each. Each unit has a slight curve to it, and when she did the embroidery, she rotated the fabric, and the circle is made up of eight of these units.
Sara downloaded the pattern for the ivy from Cactus Punch Embroidery Digitizing (where perfection is the common thread), and modified it on her PC using the special software the goes with her machine. I forget what it's called, but apparently it's very annoying to use. Once the pattern was the way she liked it, she transferred it to the special little disks that the sewing machine accepts. Then you just pop the disk into the sewing machine, and there's a keypad so you can specify what pattern you want to embroider. It's really fun.
The ivy circle embroidery was a huge success, it looks absolutely gorgeous. I can't wait for the whole thing to be finished, it's going to look terrific. The next step is to sew the middle section together, so we'll have a big square of cloth, and then cut the fabric for the border. However, we couldn't do that on Sunday because we wanted to press the cloth before sewing it, and the heat would set the magic disappearing ink we used to mark the position of the embroidery. So we need to wait a few days for the ink to vanish.
We also finished hemming Leigh's dress, and the horsehair really did give it a great shape. Also, she stepped on it twice on her way to the mirror, so I'd say that project was a complete success. We also did a bit of alteration to the bodice because there were some puckers in the fabric. However, we got tired before we finished, so we'll need to revisit the bodice at some point in the future.
As much fun as hemming Leigh's dress was, I've actually decided to pay someone else to do mine. In fact, I have it my car right now, and I'll be heading over to Creatique Alterations & Tailoring after work. They have a silly name, but as long as they can hem my dress that's fine by me. I picked them because they're close to my work and because they're right next door to the President Tuxedo where we ordered Jon's tuxedo. Which is another thing we accomplished this weekend, finally. We decided to forgo the all-white tuxedo option, and there will be no crushed velvet or ruffles involved. And the groomsmen will not be getting cummerbunds that match the bridesmaids dresses.
And now, I'm off to get my dress hemmed and then home to sew! I'm really excited to see the chuppah take shape. I'm somewhat less excited about picking stabilizer off the back of the embroidery, though. For those who have never experienced machine embroidery, stabilizer is the stuff you put behind the fabric so it doesn't wrinkle while it's being embroidered. The machine stiches through the stabilizer as well as the fabric, so you need to pull or cut off all the excess, which taking care not to cut the fabric or rip out the embroidery. This is as fun as it sounds, and even more so when the stabilizer is sticky.
Next time - the bachelorette party!