August: I began the embroidery. I had sketched the botanical motifs in advance — not precisely, because the point of the hand embroidery was that it would be somewhat loose, somewhat organic, different from the engineered precision of the construction. I transferred the outlines to the fabric with a water-soluble pen and began with the fern fronds at the center of each cuff.
The silk thread I used was a slightly finer weight than standard embroidery thread — not floss, a proper silk stranded thread that behaves differently, has more luster, takes the light differently. I worked in the evenings under a good lamp. Ben would be on the other end of the couch. Sometimes we’d be talking; more often we’d both be in our own things, just in the same space. I finished one cuff over three weeks of evenings. Then I started the other one.
September: I finished the embroidery and constructed the overskirt. The overskirt is detachable — it buttons at the waist of the main dress, fully removable. The hem of the overskirt has a simpler version of the botanical embroidery, abbreviated, just enough to echo the cuffs without competing with them. The skirt itself is full and moves when you walk, which was the whole point of using a silk crepe for this weight of fabric.
I finished in mid-September. I tried the completed dress on once, in our bedroom with Ben watching, and it was right. Not in a perfect way — the hem on the left side was a thread too long and I took it up before the wedding — but right. What I had been designing and sewing and embroidering for nine months was a dress that did what I wanted it to do. That is not always the outcome. That is the best possible outcome.