Episode 30: So You Think You Want to Knit a Wedding Dress

What have I been doing for the past six months, you ask? Why, I’ve been working on my wedding dress. Seriously. This whole damn time. How close am I to finishing? Not even a little.

This project has been such an endless font of frustration, anger, and sadness, that my ability to write about it in lower case just vanished after about the tenth stupid, avoidable mistake. If I was honestly journaling the last six months of work, IT WOULD READ LIKE THIS BECAUSE HOLY SHIT DID I REALLY FORGET TO DO THAT?! HOW DID I MANAGE TO DO THE MATH WRONG AGAIN!?!?! HOW IS IT EVEN POSSIBLE FOR IT TO GO THIS BADLY?

It’s too late for me. I’ve poured far too much time and energy into this project; even though it now appears I made it in the wrong size (seriously), it’s too late to turn back. I have to take this mountain of lace and turn it into something wearable, if not particularly attractive. I’m the marathon runner who pooped a little on mile 22 but can’t bring themselves to quit now, so I’m just gonna carry that load in my pants the rest of the way.

You’re welcome for that image.

So I’m a lost cause, but I worry that there might be other impressionable women out there who might think, as I once did, that knitting their own wedding dress is a good project to take on. They might be of the impression that craftiness, pluck, determination, and an extremely patient fiancé are all they need to make this work, and won’t it really be worth it when they get to walk down the aisle wearing their own creation? It’ll be the most amazing heirloom! Totally unique! They might even get written up in the local paper for how awesome they are!

Well, I’ve been doing this for a year and a half now, and I have some wisdom to impart.

1. Don’t.

Seriously, do not do this. It’s not worth it. That money you think you’re saving? You’re taking it out on your sanity and the health of your future marriage. You may not believe it now, but you will eventually have a complete breakdown in which you will find yourself ugly crying over Oxi-Clean and t-pins. Again, not even a little worth it.

2. OK, you won’t listen to reason. I’ve been there. So if you’re really going to do this thing, this horribly inadvisable thing that will ruin your life, you need to make friends with someone who has made a dress before. Not a cute little A-line sundress either, you need to find someone who has made a full-length gown. With their hands. Successfully. You need to find this person and buy them a lot of beer and make them tell you their secrets.

3. You need to start with a sewing pattern. There are exactly 2 patterns for knit wedding dresses on the entire internet and they both suck. Don’t even try to modify them to fit that pretty image in your head. Start with a sewing pattern, and then buy the aforementioned friend a bottle of tequila and make them teach you how to read it.

4. Go back before Step 3 and remember to check that the site you bought this sewing pattern from uses standard dress sizes. Oh, they don’t? That’s a good thing to find out four months before your wedding. Better hit the gym, fatty, cause it turns out you just made the wrong size dress.

5. Learn how to math better.

6. Give up, cry, steal back the rest of that tequila and beer you gave your (fictional) friend with all the knowledge, and buy a damn wedding dress like a NORMAL HUMAN. GOD. WHY IS THIS SO HARD FOR YOU TO UNDERSTAND?