The "Secret Project"

The "Secret Project"

On November 12th was my Mom's 23rd anniversary of her passing. I was having a frumpy wumpy kind of day & then my brother Mike called me. Actually he left me a mssg on the answering machine that he was just calling "to talk" Oh boy...I wonder what he needs to talk about. Did I say sumthin wrong in my post about Mom? What could it be? I called him back & he told me he has something of Mom's and asked if I'd be interested in looking at it. I was like, heck yeah!! I didn't even know right away what it was but was interested! He went on to tell me it was the dress Mom wore to my brother Darryl's ordination. He went on to talk about me being all into crafts & wondered if maybe I could make something out of it for us kids. Of course I said YES!!! He said the dress was stained from water damage but the beadwork might be able to be used to make ornament type sachets. I went to pick up the dress that very night. That's when Mike told me the story of the dress. Apparently Mom had a dress ordered for the Ordination but it hadn't come in yet. She gave some $ to my brothers & sent them out on a dress buying adventure. Ate the time St Vincent DePaul was near our house so they went there. It was there that they picked up the dress. There was no time to order another or go to a speciality shop...the Ordination was too close!! So this dress they picked out would "do" Mom wore the dress to Darryl's Ordination into the Priesthood (did I say that right?) and people remarked on how she looked like a Princess. I knew when I took it home I had a big task ahead of me. I wanted to honor my Mom & siblings & not ruin the dress. It took a good month before I even made the 1st cut. After that it all came together & sachets were born. I presented these sachets to my older siblings on Christmas Day after the meal. When Darryl opened his he sniffed it. I went on to tell him "it doesn't smell like anything but an old dress" I then handed him the photo that was taken at the Ordination of the family...with Mom in the dress. I had hoped to scent the sachets with Charlie perfume as it was my Mom's favorite. Even though Mom was not with us...she was!!!

The dress

Beadwork around the waist

Beadwork around the neck

back of neck beadwork

back of waist beadwork

The dress still had the pricetag in it!! A nifty $3.00 bought this!!!! I wonder why Mom left the tag in there.....Just think though, her dress was ordered & I'd imagine it was a nice dress, probably far more expensive than this...but this dress was the dress my Mom chose to wear when the day came. Mike said the ordered dress made it there in the nick of time but Mom thought it more special to wear the ones her kiddos picked out...and she was called a Princess!!! How cool is that!!!

Brayden could sense my emotions, he always does. Now, I don't know why, and you can call me silly but deep down I think he even knew this dress was special & he took it upon himself to nuzzle in it & pose.