Wednesday, March 18, 2009

The Weekend that Was – Part 1 : Flower Girls’ Dresses

This post could be taken as a postscript to the one that Tireless Mom did last week. Like I mentioned in my earlier post, yes, last weekend was THE WEDDING weekend; the much awaited wedding of my cousin brother Shayariz and his bride Nadia.

Sometime last January, I wrote about my role in the wedding preparations (here for story..) Remember, I’m one of those who just couldn’t say NO and that landed me with the task of handling the flower girls and everything that came with that. No problem, easy peasy as how Kak Teh put it, nothing that I couldn’t handle.

Dress # 1

I had all planned properly, the tailoring of the flower girls’ dresses and the beading of the dresses. Anticipating that I was going to be stormed with work in the office, I had sent the girls’ dresses much earlier. It was before CNY that I took the materials to the tailor. She promised me that she would have them ready in three weeks. Fine with me, I thought coz I’d still have ample time to do bead work on the dresses.

At work, I was pretty occupied with my deliverables, and I somehow forgot to call the tailor to check on the dresses. In fact, I went to the tailor’s shop two weeks after the earlier date given to me. My mental calculations had it that I’d have enough time to get the dresses beaded.

It’s Murphy’s law I guess, for if anything can go wrong, it will. When I went to the tailor’s place to collect the dresses, I almost had a heart attack when the tailor said that she had completely forgotten about the flower girls’ dresses!!! Huh…say what??? I saw in her cupboard where she stacked the tempahan materials, the materials were still untouched. Oh my God….I was already panicking.

My tailor apologized for the slip up, and promised to get started immediately. She said she’ll have them ready in a week. I was pretty upset about the delay, and so much wanted to scream at her. But what’s the point??? And having an out burst was not going to solve the problem.

Three days later I received a call from the tailor. She said that the dresses were ready for collection. Fuhh…what a relief, but there was still a long way to go to get the dresses beaded, and the wedding will be in three weeks.

Late nights, busy weekends held me back from doing beading work on the three dresses. I remember one night I stayed up till almost 1 in the morning to finish as much bead work as I could. The next day, I woke up with a terrible headache – all caused by the strain on the eyes and not to mention the late night.

The bead work

Half way through by beading, I ran out of beads and when I went to the shop, they told me that they too have run out of the beads that I wanted!!! I could have kicked myself for not buying enough beads earlier. In the end, I had to make do with beads of a different colour. Nasib baik still okay, and still matches the dresses of the flower girls.

Beads were sewn on each of the flower of the lace


One completed dress

It was a mother – daughter partnership. Farah helped me a lot with the bead work. In fact she did most of the work and I worked on putting the finishing touches on the dresses. The last dress was finally ready like 3 hours before the wedding, with me sewing the last line of beads on it.

What a relief that was!!!

To be continued

15 comments:

Kak Teh said...

Kay, you are so talented! I cannot sew to save my life! But I come from a long line of seamstress..my grandma, mak, sisters, semua pandai menjahit, beading, knitting, quitling - apa saja. Me? hmmmm.

It must be so satisfying to see your labour of love.

Kak Ezza@makcik Blogger said...

cantik la kay....akhir nya siap jugak baju baju tu ya!

Part 2 bila pulak ni?

Queen Of The House said...

Where do you get the energy? Kalau I, I'd just buy the ready embroidered dresses, hehehe. Vey nice!

ray said...

Komen Pak Malim kucing ray yg alim.

Dress itu sangat cantik, kata Pak Malim dgn mata yg lentik.

Kama At-Tarawis said...

Oh Gawd.... you are one 'pandai' woman! Cantik sesangat your bedwork...

Kama At-Tarawis said...

err.... BEADWORK! BEADWORK!
BEDWORK tu I tengok lawa gak.. Nissa and her abangs...hehehehe

Naz in Norway said...

Wah Kay!!!
multo multo talented :)
I would have gone straight online and buy ready made ones but I'm sure it wouldn't be as nice, though.

kay_leeda said...

Dear Kak Teh,

Talented ker? Buat beading ni boleh lah. Jahit menjahit, errr...that I can't. Yes, I remember when knitting was a hit way back in the 70s. Siap join class knitting. But I always got my counts wrong. Senget jadik nyer sweater tu..heh..heh :)

kay_leeda said...

Kak Ezza,

Alhamdulillah...akhir nyer siap kak. Hampir juling saya dibuat nyer. But so happy that the dresses turned out pretty :)

kay_leeda said...

Dear Queen,

I was so tempted to go get those off the rack ones. But since my aunty dah susah-susah got the materials for the girls, I didn't have the heart to let her down.

Energy from where?? Entah...maybe coz minat kot. Tu yang tak pulun kasi buat habis tu kot :)

kay_leeda said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
kay_leeda said...

Pak Malim kucing ray yang alim,

Cantik ke? Terima kasih kerana appreciate kerja Kay, sambil browsing e-Bay.

Pak Malim tak mau di buat beading ker fur Pak Malim tu, tanya Kay yang pernah masa kecil-kecil dulu ade kutu!!! (syyyhhhh...jangan beritau sesiapa ya, kata Kay sambil makan kueh keriya)

kay_leeda said...

Kak Puteri,

Thank you..thank you!! Waduh sampai tersasul Pn Hajjah iyer, ke BEDWORK jadik nyer :)

Nasib baik lah BEDWORK tu tak de lah sesusah BEADWORK..heh..heh..LOL :)

kay_leeda said...

Dear Naz,

Yes..I know they have very pretty ones online kan. In fact the design of this dress was somewhat inspired by those found online.

One thing about us in the family, nak jugak leave our hasil tangan when it comes to occassions like these. Ni baru may aunty, kalu my mom, haiyo...lagi ler, semua buat sendiri!!!

Madam Tai Tai Again said...

Kay, if that was me sewing the thousands of beads on to the dress, my eyes will go juling that even Lasik can't rectify it!

I think your post-retirement future will be very bright indeed with the skills you have. :-)