Sunday, May 17, 2009

Saints in Jeans Handle Prom Crisis

The Saints: Gini Stowell and Pat Wubbena. (Gini had arrived for a week's visit with her son, Dave Sather, the high school teacher. Pat was a short-term volunteer, here for a month to work in the book store.)

The Crisis: The theme for this year's Holden Village High School Prom is "Jane Austen." In keeping with the theme, the four young ladies attending Holden Village High School had elected to wear dresses in keeping with what Pride and Prejudice's Elizabeth Bennett would have worn on such a social occasion had Mr. Darcy asked her to accompany him! (Dream on.)

As always, "the devil is in the details." A period piece pattern for an Empire waisted gown and the gauzy material with which to make the girls' dresses was ordered. Construction began. It was all too soon abundantly clear that the "gauzy material" was just too gauzy...in other words, such dresses would have been indecent...in any era.

The Solution: Dave sends an SOS to mom. Mom arrives with her own sewing machine and quickly assesses the problem and possible solutions...another "dress" lying underneath the original dress...a complete lining...is the only way to keep the eyebrows of villagers at half mast on Prom Night (at Holden, EVERONE attends the Prom). Mom is assisted in the project by Pat who is given "release time" from the book store in order to sew. The two of them work long hours for a week in order to bring the project to a successful conclusion. By the end of the week, only the hemming and making the final adjustments needed to be done.

Gini examines one of the dresses while Dave gets another one down for the final fitting.

Grace Coffey gets some tips for "accessorizing" once the big night arrives.

Gini and Pat stand with the girls at the end of the week to show the results of their efforts. Marta Rolf-Vegdahl, Grace Coffey, Inge Chiles, and Raina Rerucha-Borges gracefully pretend there are no pins holding material in place for this final fitting.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

wow. gorgeous!

Debbie said...

amazing to see these young ladies all dressed up! I'll miss the prom this year :(