Update.. with shoes... and pretties... (really long sorry)

So... it's been a busy few weeks, punctuated with me catching a cold and being sick for over a week. I am in fact, home sick now, after giving up on getting better at work, since that was just making me steadily sicker after being off for several days, then back, and now off again. Stupid cold.

I am hoping that this means I will have an awesome immune system come the wedding and not get sick again though.

But! Onto better things...

Much progress has been made. Let's go through a brief list and then if you're not interested you can skip forward or stop reading or whatever.

• Invites arrived! Yay! And they are nicer than I expected. And will be mailed next week probably. They can stay secret 'til they arrive in mail boxes I think... (people we are seeing in the meantime are getting handed theirs of course.)
• Flower girl dress arrived.
• I bought some shoes.
• The long awaited fabric samples arrived.
• We booked a celebrant
• His lordship ordered a suit.
• I'm nearly done on flower girl bolero.

So... Flower girl dress. She's very happy with it, and it fits which is good. I think the straps are a tiny bit tight, and I may replace them with some black satin ribbon to fit better come closer to the day.

 

This will go with a green bolero and new black shiny shoes probably.  I can't believe how grown up in it she looks!

 

These are my shoes, which I love. I was going to get some granny style grey boots, or some green or grey ballet flats, but these are really nice, fit well and I really like! (Plus were very reasonably priced.. under budget bonus, yay!)

Finally the fabric sample arrived! Hurrah! This has lead to some interesting back and forth. I was able to discount the creams right out as they are very buttery yellow. Almost tea stained colour. So then, I'm picking between and ivory and an "arctic white". Having looked at them at night time mostly, I thought the white was the go, but now looking at them in daylight, comparing to the grey chiffon for the underskirt... I'm not sure. The ivory doesn't look as yellow in this light and looks a bit softer next to the grey chiffon. I'm still undecided. I know I can wear either with my colouring, so I don't know.
(Incidentally, that was another decision. I decided to go for a solid pale grey ruffled underskirt. The thought of the stress of trying to hand dye mottled grey chiffon on a deadline? Yeah, maybe not. If I still have 6-7 months to the wedding with time to fix stuff ups without stress? I'd consider it. But I've decided there will be enough natural gradiation in the colour of the skirt with the layers to still get the overall effect I was going for.)

We booked a celebrant. Yay. It was all very easy, and she seems reasonable. We need to go down in a couple of weeks to meet her and sign paperwork and such.

His lordship is getting a suit made. I'm really happy about this, as I think he will actually be substantially happier with something that is more his style (retro-loving man he is) than just going for a rental/jacket/whatever. And he will at least he wear out of his again. ;)  It's going to be charcoal grey, with retro detailing, but modern cut. Probably with a waistcoat (cos he loves waistcoats). There's a great tailor in Mount Lawley that does made to measure suits, and specialised in period suits, so I think it will all work out well.

I'm also about to start seaming up and doing the ribbing on small persons bolero-so-she-doesn't-freeze. The pattern ended up being very oddly written (thanks Ravelry for the warning!) So I ended up making a LOT of modifications, including redrafting the entire front of the pattern. If I have realised how difficult it was going to be, I could have written a pattern from scratch, honestly. I think I may have overdone the sleeve length very slightly, but hopefully it will all work out. No photo because it's just a big pile of knitted green. (It's knit in one piece).

That is all. It's all pretty much just ticking along. I think not being steadfastly attached to one idea is helping, so if I can't find something exactly like what I want, I find something else. No big deal.