My Wedding Dress

I'm getting married. Not so much time and I still didn't know what to wear. Finally, my friend helped - she gave me a wedding gift - her wedding dress.

For me it was just too decent - the lace sleeves are just not like me. So a lot of things got solved. First, I wanted to sew my wedding dress and at the same time didn't want to because all the stress from that - I might finally find myself hating them if the process was too hard... Now I could just tweak a finished dress with my design which was a perfect choice.

The dress was dirty at the bottom and had a hole from fire in it. I made a tuck at the hole. Lucky enough, the skirt was so long, that I could shorten it and get rid of most of the dirt. It was pain in the ass. The chiffon is hard to hem and I was just folding the (curved) edge twice and sewed through it. It was moving like water and ended up very unprofessionally hemmed.

I made a pattern for sleeve - arc 80 x 60 cm. The armhole was measured from the dress. I used cans to keep the fabric in place - chiffon is like water, always moving and changing shape when you don't watch it.

Finally I googled up a video how to hem chiffon. You fold the edge once, sew through it, the you turn it upside down, fold once more and sew at the right side.

Results are excellent compared to my previous work. Before and after ironing.

The lower hem was not nice, but it wasn't noticeable close to the ground and in loads of layers of fabric. Sleeves - that is different. They're close to sight and have to be perfect.

Light fabric - no machine lock, just tie the knot in hand and pull through.

I cut out the armholes after hemming so that it doesn't rip off in the meantime.

I cut off the original sleeves, pinned the new ones and sewed them in.

One sleeve trial. I sneezed at the photo :-D

It all went well, so I added the second sleeve and cut the seam allowances.

I folded the lining net over the seam and sewed on in hand.

As an accent, I glued some AB crystal rhinestones to the neckline.

The dress was meant for outdoor ceremony and it moved beautifully in the wind.

My handsome beloved husband.

Finally this dress meant something more. There is a lot from me.

Friendship - it is a gift from friend

Sewing - I designed and made part of it

History - the sleeves resemble medieval long sleeves

Dancing - we used AB crystals for our belly dance costumes

Fireshow - the hole from fire :-D

Wedding Dress Petticoat

 It seemed like a good idea to make a petticoat so that my wedding dress gets some volume.

I bought 4 meters of tulle and tried to get as much of it as possible. Every layer should be like twice as wide as the previous one.

I sewed the pieces together to get four panels. I gathered each of them, pinned them and sewed together. Pinning the last layer was really annoying. I had to readjust several times to get even result.

When I had this piece, I sewed the center back seam.

I folded the upper piece twice to get a tunnel for rubber band.

Here it is.
And how did this story end? I spend a lot of time at the petticoat. Then I tried it with the dress, then tried again and again.. And had to admit it doesn't work. Light chiffon and satin fabrics showed bulks and the overall shape was not flattering. This is probably a choice for dress from tough material that holds its shape and just needs some support.

So bye bye my dear. Unused.