Two Hundred Yards of Embroidered Organza

This past weekend was full of lots and lots of meetings and I missed some fun events because there were meetings to have with people with pretty full schedules.  But everything went very well and it was a good weekend's work.

One meeting was with our Finance Committee, to go over items that need to be included in the budget that will be presented at the next Grand Chapter session because that is the budget for my year and all of our 2013 items needed to get worked into it.  My AGP and I met with two members of the Committee to go through our ideas that require funds and talk about how to make them work.  The Committee members were awesome!  We went through everything and they worked with us to figure out which line item should contain the amount, which ones were in/out items so required revenue entries too and it was almost easy.  Not that anything involving money is ever actually EASY, but it was relatively painless.  Now I just hope everything can sail through the full committee just as easily and I will be thrilled.

As it happens, however, a far more difficult task has arisen and that is dress fabric and style for the 2013 Lady Grand Officers and Lady Escorts.  We've been looking at dress material and dress style off and on for a while now, but we have reached the point where we have to get SERIOUS about it and that has caused a few intakes of breath, no carpet in the mouth yet, but definitely some bracing to do.

It is also totally unfair.  The men only need a little vest each with a matching tie and there are lots of choices from regular manufacturers.  But to get actually original dresses for the ladies, you have to first find someone to make them (done for now - BOY AM I GRATEFUL for that), then you have to choose a style and then you have to find the fabric and get enough quantity for matching dresses.

In terms of a design, the inevitable debate arises about how big a skirt to give the dresses.  Almost everyone loves the very big poofy classic Eastern Star look and for a session dress, which will be worn at the Grand Chapter session and only on special occasions thereafter, great, fine, wonderful.  You only have to pack it the one time to get to Grand Chapter and you aren't sitting next to each other or other people with your skirts flopping into their laps.  But for a dress that will be for all or part of a year of travel, I am not convinced that an eighty yard petticoat is all that fun to pack, travel in or sit in, especially when the weather turns hot, as it inevitably does in most places in the state in the summer.  But you don't want to go with anything too straight either, because you don't want an inconvenient slit that shows your slips or requires you to wear pantyhose instead of knee highs all summer either.  And then you have a wide range of body types in any Grand Family and what looks good on some is just not going to look great on all.  And you have to decide if the same style will be used for the Officers and the Escorts or a different style or the same thing in a different color or totally different dresses.  Sigh!

Okay, so you get through that part - you resign yourself to the fact that it just ain't gonna look good on everyone and you hope it looks good on you and then you do some math.  You multiply however many dresses by however many yards and the next thing you know, you are trying to find someone who will supply you with two hundred yards of embroidered organza because your seamstress will hurt you badly (or quit, which is worse) if you make her sew lace or some other layer that will rip in her machine.  The problem is that no one will weave for you for less than a thousand yards and most people don't stock that many yards in anything decorated.  Solid colors, sure, order all you want and no worries, but decorated stuff, not so much.  And of course, someone has to buy the fabric, and usually that would be the AGM, needs to lay out anywhere between $4,000 and $7,000, hopefully to be reimbursed when she has her officers and they can give her a deposit for the dresses, whenever that might be.

Then, when you've got that done, you have the travel suit problem, which is finding some sort of jacket or color scheme that is going to look good on both men and women.  But that is next week's problem.  Whew!

Next weekend, I will be in Riverside and Coachella.