Wake Me Up When Summer is Over!

Hello, is it fall yet? Not by the looks of the thermometer out side sadly. Last Monday I pushed the season and made a fall dish for the family, NOT the one I have pictured above, but a real hearty dish that really isn't a good idea to make on a hot day.  Today I cannot get away with doing this as you can see above, it's in the hundreds today!
The invitations were all sent out last Monday and that was quite a feat unto itself! Looking for the right stamps and then assembling them took some time. Caitlin did all the hard work though, as she did all the addresses in calligraphy! It took a few weeks, as there were over 80 of them to do.
Next thing up is Caitlin's wedding shower. Since the maid of honor lives in London, she cannot put one together for her, so the groom's mom and I are throwing the shower for her.  If it were not enough to plan a big wedding with 250 guests, lets just throw on a shower as well hahahah. It will be a lot of fun and I'm actually looking forward to putting all the little touches on that little party as well.

On another note, I finally ordered my dress for the wedding. Everyone was giving me a hard time because I was dragging my feet on getting one. Why you ask? Well, I really hate trying on dresses first off. Can I just rant here a little bit on how annoying it is when you have a  hour glass figure, but there really are no dresses to fit it? Dress makers assume that if your hips are a certain width, then you must have the bust size to match it. Wrong! I went to three department stores hoping to try on a dress that I liked. They either had ugly colors, or not my size. Customer service doesn't exist anymore either, no matter how fancy the department store. I finally tried on a dress of the designer that I liked just for the sizing, and went home and ordered the style I liked on line. Same for the shoes! Remember when Nordstroms specialized in fitting shoes? Well, they don't anymore. I guess everyone on the planet has a medium width foot. If you have a narrow foot or a wide foot, then you best be at home scouring the internet because there will be no shoes for you to try on. I asked the salesperson at Nordstrom why they don't carry ANY shoes in a wide width( except for those god awful Munro shoes), because surely there are others like me. His response was, " They collect dust." Really?! Somehow I don't believe this, but then I started to think. Perhaps the reason why they might be collecting dust is because women are so vain with shoes that they will cram their feet into a shoe that doesn't fit for the sake of fashion, and not bother to demand that they carry other widths. I finally found some online that didn't scream old lady, and both the dress and the shoes will arrive soon. I'm praying that the dress looks good on me, or I'm going to be annoyed!

We went for Caitlin's first fitting and tried everything on at the salon. She looked so beautiful, and reminded me of how I will be a crying fool on the day of the wedding!!!  

As for my little Etsy shop, I have been making special order capes it seems all summer! I was thinking that people were getting ready for fall, but all of the capes were rush orders for parties! A couple of them went to some states that are quite toasty this time of year, and I could not imagine having a party with a wool cape!   Because of all the wedding chores, it has taken me away from finishing that last garment that I photographed. The heat also makes me very unmotivated, but I'm going to force myself to get it done, as I have two flower girl dresses to make for the wedding.
I had planned on making up a batch of the capes and just selling them and not taking special orders, but I think I'm going to do the opposite, and then put the shop on vacation mode the second week of October.  

I'll keep you posted on my dress dilemma. If anyone out there knows of a good on line gown/special occasion site they like, let me know!