wedding dress fun

So, as I sit trapped in bed after foot surgery and stuck home due to COVID, I found myself going through paperwork etc. I remembered, oh yeah, I have a blog!  Funny. When I logged on, I found this draft: beginning with-

Wow, It's been five years.  I didn't realize that much time has gone by since I last signed on.  I laughed, as now two more years have passed with no blogging. Maybe I should just give up. No, I'm not a quitter. So, at a minimum, I will complete the blog I started two years ago. 

My artistic endeavors have been on hold due to work and life. I suppose my biggest and most challenging one was the creation of my daughter's wedding dress, while simultaneously going to graduate school, writing a thesis and working full time. Just saying that makes me tired. I am still pinching myself that it all really happened.

Making a wedding dress was never anything I ever really considered doing, even though I had sewn all my life. It wasn't my plan. It just happened, I threw out the option on our way to try on wedding dresses. After my daughter tried on some dresses, and was approached by other girls wanting to try on the dress she was wearing, it happened, "OK, mom you can make my dress". I thought to myself, "did I just say I was making her dress?" Yep. 

I was so nervous that it wouldn't meet her expectations. I had to let that go. I was doing this!

It was an awesome daunting project which took a year to design and create. We started it Dec. 2016 for her wedding in Jan. 2018. It was a collaboration with her ideas and mine. The theme was "speak easy"/ 20's style. 

I ordered books, quizzed other knowledgeable seamstresses and began. I made a mock-up dress from muslin to get sizing before we cut into the silk. My Christmas gift that year was a dress form (something I had always wanted, a perk for the job). 

It was a learning experience, a labor of love, and truly a lot of fun. It was a great excuse for my daughter to come visit every month and spend the weekend with me (a part I especially loved). My dining room became the sewing room (fortunately I have a large table).  The dress became the table cloth, which we had to keep covered to keep the cats from using it as a napping spot.  We listened to hours of books on tape, like the Rook and Harry Potter as we hand sewed tons of beads and sequins. We spent hours deciding over what we wanted the lines to look like, how to curve them, and incorporate the lace. The dress comprised of an under-dress of champagne pink satin with the top, three layers of silk, organza, netting and tulle for a little fluff. We hand stitched lace and beads and covered the buttons to match. 

It was a fete trying to acquire the desired lace at a reasonable price. As luck would have it, a local fabric store was closing, so I was able to find what we needed. It was early in the process so figuring out the quantity was tricky. And my daughter was not in town with me, so I was taking a lot of photos and texting them to her as I looked for hours through all the lace, searching for just the right design.  

Another challenge was padding the dress form to mimic the size of my daughter.  I got a form that would accommodate both our figures, but getting the padding in the right places was challenging. After a lot of measuring, rearranging pads, and stuffing, we were moving along. 

Another concern was making sure that the dress was dance proof, no slippage, or showing excessive cleavage, so strapless was out. So, how to incorporated straps, keep the low back  and yet allow for a bustier to support a large bosom. When we came up with a design that was pleasing, we got to work again. I pinned the straps on the form to check the layout before I sewed them with the machine.  I used tea to dye the organza more of a skin color. It took a few tests tries to figure out the right amount of time to leave it in the tea for the desired colored. I altered her bustier to accommodate the straps of the dress. I sewed hooks inside and attached them to the bustier for extra security.

                                          

                            

It was challenging keeping everything straight and together during cutting, sewing and beading. I basted the layers together. I found more is better in that regard. We used a pen that disappeared after a few hours (as long as it wasn't ironed) for marking lines etc. Worked great for marking our bead lines. Of course we did a sample before we started to be sure. Since there was no way to get any more lace pieces, we had to carefully plan where they would go. We spent hours laying them out, moving them around, then back again. We used pearls, sequins, glass crystal beads and seed beads.

 

Our vision was appearing before our eyes. 

It was exciting. 

My special touch...                 

We kept it hidden from on lookers until the big day. So, classy!

The day finally arrived, and it turned out awesome!

8 yards plus of scalloped lace finish the bottom hem. That involved fray-checking the silk layers as I trimmed and hand-sewed the lace to form the edge. Painstaking, but we loved the look.

This was taken after we pinned up the bustle, the one thing that we did not get a chance to try before the big day. We were thrilled that it worked. Next time (hah, no!) I would make the loops slightly tighter, as a couple came lose during twirls on the dance floor. Otherwise, it worked out great.I hid the buttons in the lace panels on the hip. They blended in perfectly.

A project of a life time that I will cherish forever, along my with my beautiful daughter!