This morning I woke up and literally ran to the sewing machine. I had this simple dress idea that I had to make immediately. The Sunday before Memorial Day I made a sun dress from a beautiful piece of printed cotton and I had a bit of it left over. Several weeks before, I made another dress (that I wore to a gallery opening) and I used a piece of jersey knit to accent the back, there was also a usable piece of that fabric left over. As if I had been hit it the head, the perfect dress to be made from the two remnants came to me – Bam! ( Sorry Emeril.)

I gathered the pieces of fabric and started sewing. Fast forward 45 minutes as I’m putting a piece of elastic in the back for quick and easy ruching, the hem of the dress got dunked in my milk. Where did the milk come from? Well, about half an hour into my dressmaking my stomach started growling, so, I reached for the Cheerios and milk. Cheerios is not my usual breakfast but its quick and easy and I was trying to make the dress in under an hour so I could wear it as soon as I was done. As the hem of the dress sat in the milk, I’m thinking “no big deal” WRONG!

I get up from the sewing machine and was casually spraying cold water on the fabric thinking that I could still wear my dress in the next hour. I touch the fabric and noticed that it was a bit slippery. At this point I’m wondering what the hell is in the milk. What followed completely destroyed my happy mood and took my dress with it.

The tiny spot with the milk stain soon blossomed into a half of the dress! And what was worst, the water and the milk being washed away, was also taking the once beautiful print down the drain! You may be wondering why I didn’t stop washing when it became apparent that the color was literally falling off the fabric; I couldn’t stop because of the slippery feeling substance that was created by the addition of water to the fabric. Once the colors bled into each other and faded, my orange turned to pale pink, my brown turned into some disgusting shade of light purple and my white was now a shade of beige. The bleeding and sliminess eventually stopped but what I was left with looked like something unearthed in ancient Egypt.

My dress that was suppose to take me an hour to make was now a pile of disgusting nothing that manage to completely destroy my morning. Who do I blame for this? I could blame the maker of the fabric but that would be too easy. I blame my excitement. If I wasn’t so excited, I would have made my egg whites, toast and fruit and ate before I started sewing; this would have left no room for milk or any other liquid to touch the fabric. If I wasn’t so excited, I would have had the chance to wear my dress at least once! Damn you, excitement! Damn you!