A New Dress for a Special Service

Thursday night, I came home with the beginnings of a cold.

Friday night,  it was even showing signs of a sinus infection.

Lotsa rest and lotsa water on Saturday, and it seems to have held off getting worse, at least, but...I have no singing voice.  Croak croak.  So I wasn't in choir today.

But, well, I had to be at church nonetheless.  The 'graduation' for the folks who have done the school of ministry classes at church was this morning, and, since it is covered by the same online school that I did my master's coursework through, I got to participate.

We really didn't have time to do the whole cap and gown thing, so we were told to just wear dressy clothes for the ceremony.

So I needed something truly dressy in the choir colors.  Because, you know, I intended to sing in choir before I lost my voice.

Last year I'd bought a length of black rayon twill with the intention of making a Style Arc Tori Designer Dress...and, black being an acceptable color for choir, I decided this week to make it.

Problem was I didn't have time to start working on it until Thursday.  Which was when I started feeling punky.  I cut it out Thursday.

And I had a little debate.  I'd remembered the collar being a bit tricky...and I was short on time...and it was black fabric, so it would have been really hard to see exactly where the start and stop points were...so I bailed and decided to just face the existing V neckline.  I could fill it in with a pretty necklace, right?

The dress went together pretty much as I remembered; except this time I thought I should like to have added a cut on facing to the armholes; there's really only enough to turn it back once. Not as nice a finish as I'd like, but it's black so it doesn't show.

I think I used what was meant to be the wrong side of the fabric; one side was a bit shiny and had a slightly more pronounced  twill; the other side was more matte.  I decided I liked the matte side better, but I had a time keeping it straight; there really was only a slight difference.  I didn't actually sew any pieces together wrong, but I spent a lot of time flipping and comparing as the pins I used to mark the right side somehow kept falling out.  And I wasn't feeling particularly sharp either.

Aaannd...when it was finished, the neckline was much too wide and deep to be comfortable.  I didn't realize how low the point of the V is; the collar piece fills it in a lot more than I expected.

So the dress will be worn with a cami under and, very likely, a scarf over.  The scarf I wore today was actually something that would work for the choir...but I actually chose to wear it because it once belonged to my grandmother.

It's probably not the most flattering dress in the closet...but it's sure comfy.

And, here's a funny...when I applied for the Master's program, I selected the Master of Religious Education degree.  Just as I was about to start, I got word that the school was changing up the structure of their degrees and the MRE would just become a Master of Ministry.  So I spent the whole year believing I would receive a Master of Ministry, using #mastersofministry on all the Facebook posts as I chronicled the journey.

Welp, guess what the diploma says?

Master of Religious Education.

LOL. #itfigures