Nightmares Do Come True: Sewing a Silk Chiffon Shirt One Day Before a Wedding

When Ryan, one of my best friends from college, the fanciest most eccentric homosexual I know, told me he was getting married to his boyfriend Brandon—the second fanciest most eccentric homosexual I know, and that the theme for the wedding would be “outdress the grooms,” I knew I needed to wear something ridiculous and I also knew I’d probably want to make it myself. When I call Ryan and Brandon fancy and eccentric gays you’re probably imagining like, men wearing hot pink ascots or something, but what I need you to imagine is men who put on avantgarde stuff like Commes de Garcon or Simone Rocha just to walk their dog.

I knew there would be no outdressing these grooms, but also wanted to seize the opportunity to turn a lewk. My outfit has been weighing on my soul since I got the save the date over a year ago. About a month before the big day I went to the fabric store to see if I could find any inspiration. I went to Vogue Fabrics in Evanston, one of the few remaining fabric stores in Chicago Land that actually carries primarily garment and fashion textiles. I found shelves of gorgeous featherweight silk chiffons all dyed in different gradients. I love to wear sheer clothing, and if there was ever a wedding to wear a completely see through top, it would be this one. So I purchased three yards and said, “yeah sure, I can definitely sew a full sleeve button shirt out a notoriously delicate and difficult to work with fabric!”

As the wedding approached and I continued to avoid my gorgeous rainbow silk, I panic bought a beautiful, designer sleeveless mesh turtle neck to wear instead. I told my friend and wedding date Park that I was foregoing making a top and instead just wearing the one I bought online. She was sad that I wasn’t sewing the rainbow silk, but said she liked the ready-to-wear piece I purchased. Two days before the wedding I was hanging out at Park’s house when she said,

“Are you sure you don’t want to sew the silk shirt?”

“IN 2 DAYS?”

“Yeah you can still do it.”

“That sounds like my nightmare why would I do that?”

“What if I come over and help you today and tomorrow?”

“We would have to leave right this second and work all night.”

“I’m putting my shoes on.”

I like, REALLY did not want to make this shirt, but also I kind of knew I’d probably never make it otherwise. Making this shirt would never sound like a fun use of my time. Plus I love when my friends want to make some kind of last minute chaos plan with me, so we went forward.

Just in the first steps of laying down the fabric, choosing the pattern layout, and cutting the fabric, it was already exceedingly clear that I could not have done this alone, and this fabric defied all natural laws, order, and physics. An otherworldly textile probably woven on a loom in Lothlórien (the elven kingdom in lord of the rings) and not meant for human hands.

What made this fabric so difficult to work with was its extreme sensitivity. Specifically, if you just barely touched or nudged a spot on the fabric, it would create a distortion that travelled down the entire lengths of the warp and weft threads from that spot. Even with four hands carefully smoothing and holding down the fabric while cutting, we removed the paper pattern pieces to reveal pieces of fabric that no longer resembled the pattern pieces we had carefully cut 30 seconds prior. Through the entire process we questioned, “was this cut fucked up, or is this just being the Shape of Water again?” Again and again we likened sewing and cutting this fabric to trying to cut and sew water.

I had heard that many sewing machines do not excel at sewing ultra fine textiles such as silk chiffon. People suggest starching your fabric, or adding a layer of tissue paper under the fabric to stabilize it while you sew. Somehow, by the grace of God, my sewing machine that I’ve used since 2009 without ever cleaning, oiling, or servicing, did an overall good job of sewing the chiffon. I did order a roll of tissue paper just in case, but ended up never trying it. I wouldn’t say the machine handled the fabric perfectly, but it was serviceable. I quickly learned to give up on back stitching my seams (if they come apart they come apart).

Making a full sleeve button shirt is a difficult project with normal fabric, so doing it with silk chiffon just made everything a little more hellish. If you remember when I wrote about making my first ever (and only other) full sleeve button down, I wrote about how making a sleeve placket was horrible. I got to the sleeve placket step of this shirt and started going through the instructions, ironing a million different little folds, and then I realized that trying to do this on this fabric could potentially bring about the permanent ruination of my spirit, or worse, completely ruin the shirt. So I changed course and just improvised some other bullshit, I really couldn’t tell you, I mean I could, but its boring, the point is: PLACKET: BYE BYE NO THANKS.

Thankfully, being at peace with calling things “good enough” and letting things be what they will be are already a core part of who I am. A perfectionist would have had to scrap this project after step one. So in about 36 hours, I produced a wearable shirt. Don’t look too closely. It would not have been a success without the assistance of Park. I did not outdress the grooms, (though some people were close, Ryan and Brandon’s roster of friends include a lot of stylish eccentrics) but I was quite happy with how my look turned out, and I love being able to brag that “I made it.” Praying to God I never do this again <3 Ok Bye!