It was a faded, discolored, shattered, fragile, dilapidated dream dress. And I wanted one.

I think it’s my favorite project to date, partly because of the epic timescale. I fell in love with it in 1996, and made it in 2013.

Yep, seventeen years from initial inspiration to completion. That’s often how it goes.

In 1996 I was a student. I picked up Nancy Bradfield’s Costume In Detail quite by chance in my University library. I’m pretty sure that’s where it all began for me.

I had no money for silk, basic sewing skills at best, and this one dress just got me in the gut and stayed there.

I wasn’t equipped to make such a thing, but it didn’t matter. I just loved on it now and then.

I built my sewing skills with simpler projects, knowing I wasn’t ready. I knew I may never be ready.

The book didn’t even have a pattern, just a sketch – and it wasn’t a simple dress. It was all precise draping and asymmetrical design, perfectly balanced. It fastened with a flap here, that crosses there, then that part lays over it *here* and closes with a tiny snap right under *there*… you get the idea. Just pretty to admire.

But in 2013 it all came together. A librarian friend helped me track the actual dress down in a local museum. I knew how to approach a museum by then, and they pulled her out of the depths of their storeroom, wrapped lovingly in acid free tissue.

Flat in a box, too fragile to display, inch by inch she gave away her secrets. A basic boned bodice; crepe de chine layered on top, piece by piece. It was easy to retrace the order of construction looking at the real dress. And even though I suck at draping, I made it happen, after seventeen years.

So don’t bemoan the UFOs, or the ideas that sit in your mental parking lot for years. There’s a gestation period for your creative children. The ones that are yours won’t go past you, I promise.