The Case of the Missing Costumes

I had a scare the other week wherein I thought I had lost my very favorite costumes. As you can imagine, this is a seamstress's worst nightmare, and I really thought that I was facing the worst.

I'd decided that I wanted to embellish one of my old costumes further, so I decided to dig through my stash and pull it out. To my surprise, this costume (which I had always kept readily at hand) was nowhere to be found! I was annoyed, but not too concerned. We'd moved twice in the past three years, and I figured a box was misplaced somewhere.

That weekend, I asked my husband to hang up a rod in the laundry room so that I could hang up all of my more elaborate ensembles. He did so very sweetly, and also carried in all of the boxes and garment bags we could find that might possibly have costumes, and helped me hang them up. We got them all nicely arranged in chronological order, but... that one costume was still missing!

And then I realized...there was another costume I couldn't find either! I was a little concerned now, because we'd gone through our whole house, but I figured they were still at my parents. Costumes keep coming out of the woodwork over there. Every few months my parents would tell me "We have more costumes/fabric to bring over, do you have space for them now?" It's almost like they raised a seamstress or something.

So, I texted my sister. As I did so, I remembered another costume that hadn't turned up...and this too was one of my very favorite pieces! Curiouser and curiouser.

My sister, however, was quite sure that all the costumes had gotten transferred over to my house. She promised to come and help me look the next day. We looked through every possible place in every possible room. And... still, no costumes.

"I'll check mom and dad's again," said my sister.

I remembered another missing costume, this one the piece that I had put over 30 hours into. I was starting to have visions of a pile of costumes lost in a parking lot during some move.

My sister texted me the next day. "No sign of them here, I looked everywhere!"

Now, my sister is an incredibly thorough person, so I knew she had done a diligent job. I chose another costume to begin embellishing at this point in my free time (see my sewing instagram for photos), and tried not to stress too much. There was still a remote chance that the costumes had gotten stored at my grandparents. I also decided to deep clean the bedroom. I didn't think the costumes were in there, but...well I had to do something, right?

Then I got another VERY excited text from my sister, who humorously relayed how she'd found the costumes in the garage after checking it for the umpteenth time. The label on the box had been somewhat misleading, and she'd thought it was another batch of clothing. BUT. It wasn't. It was my special costumes and I was so thrilled! Turns out, there was also ANOTHER box of fabric. (Oh mom and dad. I'm so sorry....)

Anyhow, no heart attack warranted, my costumes were SAFE, and my sister triumphantly transported them to my house yesterday. After several years of having all of my pieces boxes up and hidden in garment bags, I finally have everything airing out, in easily referenced order, and all of them in the same room. (It's also the basement room that we had just made floodproof, so once I get a transparent dust curtain in place, my costumes will be very well protected.)

I think only my fellow seamstresses will understand what a source of relief and comfort this is to me.

For other seamstress confessions, click here!