April 30, 2005
Slowly
That's the answer to the question those in the know have been asking me: 'So, how's it going?' I remeasured the waistband -- no wonder it felt like a tent -- I had to take off 6 inches from the waistband alone. I'll piece those together in a bit, then cut a single piece of interfacing (probably going with the lighter weight one this time), and then I can tackle de-poofing the skirt.
Haven't started on the top yet, but if things start going well on the skirt tonight, that might be motivation. I'll definitely attempt the broadcloth mockup first though, just to make sure there aren't any egregious fit problems.
Tomorrow I think Richard has signed us up to appear at a BBQ housewarming for one of his friends. I'll attempt to make something tonight to bring to that.
Otherwise pretty slow going. I need to do my work obligation tonight, and I need to schedule the trip to get my hair cut next week. Hopefully Arthur won't be on vacation or totally booked either.
Posted by jodikins at 5:10 PM | Comments (0)
April 27, 2005
Sewing and maintenance
It's almost 5am. Richard's been doing maintenance since 2am, I think. I've been working on my dress. The skirt is coming together nicely. I need to do some final fitting on it (I made the waistband a little too big, so I need to put some darts into that before I finish it off), and I'll need to put the horsehair braid in the hem.
Overall, it's been smooth sailing. A few minor incidents, but nothing that wasn't recovered from. And zippers are easy. And it looks so pretty -- I'm glad the tacky bridesmaid's dress thingy wasn't available :)
Posted by jodikins at 4:54 AM | Comments (0)
April 25, 2005
Two weeks, two days
Richard's ring finally arrived this afternoon, and it was too big. So, I followed the instructions on the bluenile website, and called them to see about exchanging it. The nice bluenile customer service rep asked me how far away our date was? Is it in a week or two weeks or longer than that? I immediately answered "oh longer than that..." The answer has always been 'longer than that' until I looked at the calendar today. Holy crap. Two weeks and two days. We're getting married in two weeks and two days.
I snapped out of my utter panic (omg, the dress isn't done!), and discussed alternate methods of getting a smaller ring here in time. Followed through on that, and the new, correct ring should be here Thursday.
I need to get my ass in gear, focus, and get at least the skirt done tomorrow. I think that will give me some momentum and get me going on finishing the top and the stole. I'd like to have everything done by the weekend, but it's not the end of the world if it's not done by then.
Other items I need to schedule for:
* Getting Richard's suit cleaned.
* Finalizing rental car.
* Making hair appointment and reserving train for the appointment.
And the other miscellaneous stuff having to do with work and packing for an extended trip. Whee!
Posted by jodikins at 10:35 PM | Comments (0)
April 24, 2005
Procrastination in its many forms
I haven't worked on the dress at all today. I think I let myself get a little keyed up about how little time I have remaining, and the fact that I kind of didn't plan correctly for the waistband. And the interfacing that I got was probably wrong, but we'll see how things work out.
The project that I need to do next weekend (work related) was also weighing on my mind, so I decided to be somewhat productive and complete some backend db work for that today. Rather shocking considering that I've put off that portion of the job for close to a year now ;)
Posted by jodikins at 9:15 PM | Comments (0)
April 23, 2005
Refunds are good
Especially refunds from sleezy eBay fuckers who send you shitty, shitty rings instead of the one in the picture. And since I mentioned that their "guarantee" includes refunding shipping as well for "misrepresentation", I got that back too.
Now to compose the feedback. :)
Posted by jodikins at 2:10 PM | Comments (0)
April 19, 2005
You get what you pay for
Or why buying jewelry from eBay is a bad idea. Richard insisted that there were perfectly decent bands to be had on eBay at a fraction of the cost of the ones I wanted from Blue Nile. So, when we ordered my engagement ring, I ordered the platinum band that I'd wanted originally, so that we would have something to compare the eBay band to.
I purchased the eBay band for Richard on April 1st. It just arrived today.
Now, I'm not one to bitch about waiting for something to arrive (hah!), but if the band had been even vaguely similar to the one from Blue Nile, I would have sucked it up. Alas, it was not. I'm not even sure that the eBay one is even platinum -- it certainly doesn't even look close to the same color as the band from Blue Nile.
Here's what was wrong with the band:
1.) It took 3 weeks to arrive.
2.) It was not comfort fit as the listing described. There were sharp edges all over the band and the "950 Pt" on the inside of the band was rough. Like someone had dremeled it in by hand yesterday.
3.) There were 3 spots that were not polished correctly.
4.) It was scratched already.
5.) It was way too thin. In fact, it was a full gram under the advertized "approximate" weight. While 1gr might not be a lot when you're talking about larger items, for this ring, that was a full 10% less than I was expecting.
Now I have to send it back, wait for them to refund my money, and order a new ring.
Wheeee!
Posted by jodikins at 7:24 PM | Comments (0)
April 18, 2005
I hate Newark
... at least the colo parts. Too little sleep, far behind on everything, blah!
Posted by jodikins at 12:14 PM | Comments (0)
April 14, 2005
Brooches and jewelry
Well, now I have more jewelry than I know what to do with. The brooch that Linda is letting me "borrow" for the wedding (we picked out one together, she bought it, had it sent to me, and I'll send it to her after the wedding), arrived this morning, and it's really pretty. I think it will go well with the white dupoini wrap that i'm making, The little blue pin that I got off of eBay is a little too small, and the pink one from Amazon was just hideous when I got it. Janet Jackson's nipple comes to mind.
Posted by jodikins at 9:45 AM | Comments (0)
April 13, 2005
Damn shoes
Back to shoes again. The Nordstrom ones did not fit, i.e. they were feet killers. I went searching for relatively cheap shoes that fit and were still pretty. Ebay had a few options, so I purchased them. They arrived this morning, and I hate one pair and the other pair is tolerable. I'm debating the Easy Spirit store and shopping online there. Bleh!
Posted by jodikins at 11:32 AM | Comments (0)
April 12, 2005
Day of the wedding
Morning:
Big breakfast
11am:
Manicure and pedicure appointments
1:30pm:
Back home, regular lunch, halo, make cupcakes!
4:20pm:
Walk to courthouse and get married at 4:30pm!
6:30pm:
Get dressed in dinner appropriate clothes
8pm:
Dinner at Daniel's Broiler in Bellevue
Posted by jodikins at 7:00 PM | Comments (0)
And the date is set...
Well, despite wanting to procrastinate until tomorrow, I bit the bullet this afternoon and gave Judge Admire a call and left him VM asking about doing the ceremony. Then I waited nauseously for him to call back. Fortunately he did while we were having dinner, and he sounds just delightful. He will be performing the ceremony at 4:30pm for us at the courthouse. Yay!
Posted by jodikins at 6:37 PM | Comments (0)
April 11, 2005
Picking up the license
Leslie's on her way to pick up the license! And it's making me feel totally queasy/butterflies, heh :) Then this week I'll have to call one of the judges and set up at time for the ceremony.
Posted by jodikins at 3:43 PM | Comments (0)
April 10, 2005
Having nice things
I'm still giddy about the ring, and it's occured to me why: I've never had any jewelry worth more than maybe $200. I've never owned a diamond, nor anything in platinum. Seeing the sparkle makes me feel like a little kid again, looking at my mom's modest 1/4 ct ring in the sunlight.
A lot of the elements of the ring that I chose are related to my concept of how things should be from when I was a small child. My diamond is a little bigger (.57 instead of .25), but it's the same setting, and the same look as my mom's white gold one. Simple, understated and elegant.
Posted by jodikins at 3:25 AM | Comments (0)
April 8, 2005
The wedding of my dreams
As we gain momentum on this whole marriage business, I paused and thought "Wow, this isn't the way I thought getting married would be." But then I realized that I really hadn't given weddings and marriage much thought throughout life. I never really thought I could find someone to tolerate me for any length of time, and I had even less hope of finding someone I could tolerate for a lifetime.
Now that Richard and I have been married in every sense of the word except legally, it seems kind of silly planning all this wedding stuff. Fun, for sure, but silly nonetheless :)
Posted by jodikins at 4:03 PM | Comments (0)
Ring!
Finally at 11:55am (go FedEx), the ring arrived, yay! It's gorgeous, needs to be resized, and was a really great deal for the money. Soooo sparkly! I'm really glad that I went with the strong fluorescence -- I adore the blue shimmers it gives off.
Posted by jodikins at 1:32 PM | Comments (0)
Lowered Expectations
So, why am I so set on making these mini wedding cakes? I shouldn't be. At some point we'll have a larger celebration and I can make a cake then. For the four of us post marriage, I think cupcakes would be cool :) (And easy, and just as yummy.) I'll order the silver dragees though -- they make everything festive!
Posted by jodikins at 8:15 AM | Comments (0)
Way too early
Thanks to Foundry and Equinix incompetence, we were up way too late last night (2:45am). Thanks to the animals, I'm up way too early this morning (6:45am). Time to feed them, get dressed, and go nap on the couch until the ring arrives. Checking the website tracking, I'm slightly concerned that it won't actually make it here today, but I'm far too tired to even worry about such things.
Posted by jodikins at 6:47 AM | Comments (0)
April 7, 2005
Yay!
Our records indicate that the shipment sent from Jodi DeWitt
to Marriage Licensing/King County Administr has been delivered.
The package was delivered on 04/07/2005 at 10:52 AM and signed for
or released by L.MILLER.
:)
Posted by jodikins at 3:24 PM | Comments (0)
Boring
Once again the USPS and Nordstrom have conspired to leave me shoeless. Fuckers. Good thing FedEx is treating me better -- the marriage license application sent yesterday via 2 day is already on the vehicle for delivery in Seattle. UPS has also been a good little monkey and are continuing with the scheduled ontime delivery of my fabric tomorrow.
Speaking of tomorrow... Ring Day! By 10:30am tomorrow morning, the FedEx dude should deliver my lovely solitaire. It might fit, it might not. If it doesn't then we're off to Jared's Galleria of Jewelry to have it resized. Then once we determine conclusively what size I should have, I'll order the wedding band for me, and that will conclude the jewelry portion of this show.
Tomorrow I'll also call the Courthouse in Seattle to confirm that they received our application and then find out how long it will take them to process it. Then I'll send Leslie to pick it up :)
Posted by jodikins at 2:42 PM | Comments (0)
April 6, 2005
Flowers are confirmed
Which is good. They might be out of the giant calla lilies by then, but I can substitute mini callas in white, so no biggie. The flowers will arrive at Leslie's place on the Tuesday before the wedding. That way they'll have a chance to unfurl a bit, and they'll be ready for me to bundle up when we arrive Wednesday afternoon.
Posted by jodikins at 6:26 PM | Comments (0)
Patterns and forms
We didn't get out quite as early as I'd planned, but we still made it to BofA and got the cashiers check and got the license application notarized and dropped off in a Fedex box. "Great. Now the whole state of Washington is going to know I want to marry you." Heh :)
While my shoes from Nordstrom have not arrived, the patterns from McCall's have. The instructions are more complicated than I anticipated, but I'm still confident about my abilities. Translation: I'll just fake what I don't know and hope for the best :D
Posted by jodikins at 2:59 PM | Comments (0)
April 5, 2005
Marriage License
SO, I finally worked up the courage to call the Seattle Marriage License general questions line with all my questions about just how this getting married thing works. Spoke with a pretty cool guy about the specifics, and basically I can't do any more planning and arranging until we actually get a marriage license.
I pulled up the form online, filled in our information, and printed it. Tomorrow morning we have to go to BofA and get the form notarized and get a cashiers' check done for the $54.00 fee. Then I'll Fedex the form and fee and hopefully get the license done by early next week. Then I can call judges in the area and figure out how the ceremony will be, how long, where it will take place, and how much it will cost.
It was surprising how nervous I was when faced with needing to call and find out all this stuff. It's a big step in life, and one that I'm only planning on taking once :)
Posted by jodikins at 10:32 PM | Comments (0)
April 4, 2005
Here comes the bride, all dressed in...
... very good question. 18 swatches later, I'm still not sure. :) I think we have decided on the silk dupioni in silver/black for the skirt.
And now an hour later, I have the shirt fabric picked out and ordered along with the skirt fabric, and then I just decided on the jacket fabric, yay!
Posted by jodikins at 3:45 PM | Comments (0)