I see London, I see France...PLEASE GOD NO!

Ok, so I relayed the troubles my belly dance troupe is having with our new costumes last week. Since I don't know how to sew (aside from attaching buttons) my generous mother-in-law graciously agreed to do some major alterations for me. As well, my teacher, Claire, sewed a new panel and belt section into my skirt since the existing belt was at least 4 inches too small and there is no stretch to it at all.

On Friday, Claire gave me back my skirt and she did a *beautiful* job. The new panel is copper to coordinate with the copper and gold beads and it looks like the skirt was meant to be that way. :) I was thrilled. In the mean time, my MIL had worked on my top and fixed the "side nipple" problem. I now look like I'm *extremely* well endowed due to some gel inserts, but everything is very covered and modest. I feel a bit like I'm wearing a suit of armor on the top, but as long as there is no risk of a boob popping out, I'm happy.

So the skirt. It looks gorgeous, but as is typical with these costumes, it didn't come with any hooks attached. My MIL set to work on these. As soon as we started our sewing session, I started to get nervous. The belt portion is *heavy* and it's *attached* to the skirt (which is NOT a natural belly dance costume design). If it doesn't fit exactly perfect, there will be weird gaps at my hips and it could fall down.

*sweats*

We get it nice and tight and she determines where to put the hooks and snaps we picked out. The whole shebang is heavily beaded, so she has a hard time fitting the implements in. She puts on one snap and has me try the skirt on, to make sure the placement is correct before she sews on the rest.

It looks great. I am happy. I shimmy. My skirt falls off.

And there it is, folks. Because the thing is so heavy, in a split second, it was on the floor and I'm standing there in my underpants. With my mother-in-law standing right there. And my father-in-law in the next room. Happily, he had dozed off while watching football.

*MORTIFICATION*

We quickly deduce that the snap is malfunctioning because all the beads are causing it to not lie flat. Plus, it needs, oh I don't know, about A HUNDRED more snaps to assure it'll stay put due to the heft.

I change and give her back the skirt. She takes it home to sew aforementioned 100 snaps on. I got it back yesterday.

SUCH A RELIEF. She took off a ton of beads so that the snaps and hooks can lie flat. There are snaps at the far end of the belt, and then a snap plus 2 hooks at the near end of the overlap section. Everything goes together nicely and it's nice and tight. I danced in it extensively last night to assure that no nightmare scenario occurs in which I am up in front of a room full of people in an armor-like bra and and my underwear with a deer-in-the-headlights look of horror on my face.

If that happens, I may never dance again...