This weekend is the San Angelo Civic Ballet's "Evening of Dance" performance. I was invited to choreograph a piece and I think I am happy with how it turned out. (I crave feedback yet don't want to hear any feedback at the same time. Artists, dancers, musicians... do you know the feeling?!) Well because the ballet has mostly ballet costumes and couldn't afford to spend much for me to buy new costumes, I decided to make my own.
I made up my own pattern for the 3 dresses I wanted to make, however, I closely based it off a dress I had purchased and will return. I am SO happy with how they look. It took a lot of guesswork, math and creatively fixing problems, but they look good and I'm thrilled.
So, on my motivational high from completing the dresses, I began working on the one top I had to make. More confident, now, in my ability to sew without a pattern, I began to sketch and cut out a design that was merely generated from some vague idea of how I wanted it to look and some ideas from a pattern I had seen in the fabric store but was too cheap to buy ($20?! Are you kidding?!). 15 minutes later I had my pieces sewn together... and it was clearly NOT a success. So I fiddled. And fiddled. And fiddled. And eventually I was able to come up with a way to turn it into something semi-decent. However, the more I work on it the more complicated it gets and the more frustrated I become. With dress rehearsal tonight and a half-completed shirt, I am very tempted to run to wal-mart and find something that will work instead.
I have been thinking today about how this relates to life and to the gospel. Isn't it so great that God has given us a plan for this life. With the gospel we don't have to move forward toward some vague idea of happiness or heaven... We know exactly where we want to go, who will be there, how to get there, and what the consequences are if we don't stay on track. I'm grateful for scriptures, prophets, church leaders, parents, my husband, temples, patriarchal blessings, good books, and fantastic friends, all of which have been like patterns in my life, to help me shape my life into a great "finished product". I am also grateful for the atonement, which could be compared to my couldn't-live-without sewing tool... the unpicker (does it have another name? seam-ripper?). Even when we do our best to stick to the pattern, accidents and oversights still happen. I'm grateful that the Lord allows us to "tear our our faulty seams" and try again.
Excellent parable Cami! This reminds me of your parable comparing shirts to boys! I am happy we all found our perfect shirt! (I hope I am remembering that parable correctly). :) Anyway, I am impressed with your bravery to make a shirt and dresses! Good luck with everything!
ReplyDeleteMelissa, I forgot all about our parables! Will you share them with me?! Those need to be documented so we can tell them to our children and they can give us funny faces and tell us we're nuts! Hope you're doing well!
ReplyDeleteI want to see pictures of the dresses you made! Good job Cam!
ReplyDeleteI like your parable also, and would love to hear others. I'm not a big fan of sewing and am very impressed and want to see the finished products.
ReplyDeleteCam I loved your parable! And I'm just impressed that you can sew! I tend to use my seam ripper a lot even with a pattern and a very knowledgeable helper...ah just like life ;) My favorite parable from high school was the jamba juice one, which I'm pretty sure was also about boys cause it was high school, but you said something like, "Do I get Caribbean Passion cause I know I'll love it? Or do I try a different flavor?" Haha, I wish I could remember more of your parables too ;)
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