“Pictures” of the wedding dress…

I’m sorry I wasn’t able to get these pictures to you on Saturday…that silly storm knocked out my satellite again so I had to do the post on my phone… BUT… today I have those final pictures of the dress… and hope you’ll want to see them… I delivered the dress to the bride to be Saturday evening and was happy to have that job completed! She tried it on again but I only laced up the back using every 4th or 5th loop this time… just to make sure it looked good on her… It did…she was very happy! That made 2 of us!!!

There’s no real order to describe what I did to this dress, so I’ll just start… If you are new to this post, a girl at my church found this wedding dress at our local thrift shop. It was handmade by someone and she fell in love with it. I just so happened to be in the thrift shop when she was trying it on… she asked me what I thought… because the back would not zip up. It wasn’t even close! We’re talking 5-7″ of skin showing… but somehow, I said I could fix it… (turned out to be my “longest” alteration ever!)

There was LOTS of handwork involved. I had to stitch down the lining where I had taken it apart to get the back opened up… I discovered there were some purple and lavender Swarovski crystals missing along the dress train and 6 on the bodice…so they had to be replaced. As I was sewing them on, I realized whoever had sewn all them on the first time had only used a SINGLE piece of thread… not doubled, as it should have been, so I went over the whole dress securing the ones that were loose or dangling…

Isn’t the lace used on the sleeves pretty?

I had to add a modesty panel made from some satin, the same color as the body of the dress. (This was just a panel that the ribbon was laced over that was like an extension of the left back side) Loops had to be made and attached to that panel…then that was sewn to the dress… Then loops were made and attached to the right side of the back of the dress… so initially, it could be laced up with a gap in between filling in some of that “skin” space that was showing that first day she tried it on…

When I took the zipper out, I did find there was a little bit of fabric on each side that could be let out… you can see the extended part from the 2 creases down the back… (I did forget to take pictures of it after I had steamed those out, before I delivered it)

Since the dress was smaller to begin with, when I took the dress apart, the braid trim around the midriff was cut off and too short to extend the extra width I had to add in… so I had to hand stitch it back in place and figure out a way to finish off that blunt edge of the trim…

I had some lace that was heavy like the appliques all the way around the dress… and it “sort” of matched what was used before. It was slightly darker in color, but once it was sewn on and I added a lavender bead to it, it didn’t look too out of place…

The modesty panel, which actually just acts as a shield for the laces to lay against… if you didn’t have the panel, you would just see the lace up ribbon against the back skin… not what she wanted…
The panel was pulled over in place and I used snaps to hold it in place… once the dress is laced up, the snaps can be unsnapped if they have moved somewhat… the ribbon laced up will hold the panel in place and it’s pretty secure…

This is what the modesty panel looks like when the dress is just laying flat… without the ribbon run through any of the loops…

It made a big difference when I found the ribbon that matched the satin (instead of that pink I used at the fitting!)

The ribbon laced up was just the perfect ending to this long alterations job…

Here is a close-up of it… the moment of truth for me, to see if it really was going to work…

All the way down the back of the dress, I laced and laced because I wanted to present the dress to them looking like this… the ribbon is the same color as the dress, but it looks sort of yellowish in my pictures.

If it looks like the 2 pieces of braid are slightly off as they meet across the back, you are right… they were… after I looked at it in the picture, I took the snaps off and adjusted it so they were even as you eye followed across from the braid on the left to the braid on the right…

Here are the appliques I added again… both in this picture…

After I got the braid straighted up, I packed it in the box and took one final picture… or so I thought… but I remembered I still had to steam those creases where the zipper was…

You’ll just have to use your imagination that the creases are gone, because I forgot to take one final picture… oh well… I was in a hurry to get it delivered…

I didn’t ask the bride-to-be permission to show her face, so I’ll just share a neck down picture… It needs a good steaming and she’ll be ready to walk down the aisle!

So that’s what my LAST WEDDING DRESS looked like… no more… thank you very much!

Today Rebecca and Karn are arriving and we are having CHRISTMAS! YAY! YAY! YAY!

See you tomorrow!
Blessings, Jeanne