Tuesday, October 8, 2013

It's All About The Dress

I was not prepared for just how beautiful my little princess would look the morning of the wedding, all dressed up to walk down the isle. 

 I am sure the bride's mother thought the same thing, but this flower girl mama was in tears.  
Shelby's dress was a beautiful white tulle with a delicate ivory lace overlay.  The lace gathered on the left and split open as it fell to expose just the right amount of tulle.  I tried to create a similar look when making the flower girl dresses.


We also made a flower girl dress for little cousin Charlotte.  


The two of them together set our hearts a flutter.  

So....you wanna hear the drama behind the dresses???
I had Emmalee, who wears a size 10, and Charlotte, who wears a size 2, and the few formal dress patterns still available in the pattern catalogs, all from size 3 to size 8.  After several times desperately flipping through those darn pattern books, hoping I had just overlooked the magical pattern all the previous times, I finally faced the fact I would have to make the dresses without a pattern.  Ugh!

One weekend in August I took a trip to Grandma's, sewing machine in hand, set myself down at her dining room table, and got to work.  Emmalee had a beautiful dress {purchased at Costco of all places} that I absolutely loved.  It was starting to get a little snug, but I was determined to copy it, just slightly larger.  My big roll of brown paper was rolled out on the floor and the dress was slowly and carefully traced and measured at every seam.  When I finally had the pieces cut out approximately, I ripped the pajama shirt off little Charlotte {you have to be quick with her 'cause she doesn't like to be messed with :0}  and tried to re-produce the pieces in size 2.  After a couple hours of tears, cookies, and prozac, I had all the pattern pieces cut out of satin and lace.  Whew.  That was enough for one day. 

 The following morning I stitched and tucked until I had one adorable size 2T bodice for little Charlotte and a strange, much larger thing for Emmers.  After a few more hours of cutting and sewing it was apparent, I had made a fabulous dress for little Charlotte, but when it came to Emmalee's dress, it was way to big and slightly ill-shaped.  Thankfully it was time to go home, so I threw the one almost complete little dress and the pieces of the other in a box and hit the road.

I had every intention of finishing the dresses way before the wedding.  The week after getting home we ended up facing the crazy challenge presented by constructing the invitations.  After that, I overall boycotted all things wedding for about three weeks.  At that point, there were only three weeks left to work.  Let me say, it was an intense three weeks, full of sign making, program compiling, and then....the cakes {said with a voice of doom and dread}.  

I drove to Fairmont, Minnesota three days before the wedding, hoping with all my heart that everything would get done in the minuet amount of time we had left.  After two straight 12 hour days of caking, my dress box had not yet been touched.  I woke on Saturday morning, the very day of the wedding, telling myself, "Of course you can finish the dresses", but being fully aware of how bad it would be if I didn't.  After my forced hair appointment, almost at gunpoint, I drove back to Grandma's and plugged in my machine.  First I pulled out Charlotte's dress.  It needed a tulle augmentation and the lace overlay added to the dress.  

Snip, snip, whirrrrrrrrr 
of the sewing machine....and done!

Yes!  Now only an hour until Emmers was supposed to be there for pictures.  
I prayed through the entire hour of work...really.  I was uttering basically the same prayer over and over in my mind.  "Dear Father in Heaven, please help me get this dress done in time.  PLEASE don't let my machine have any issues..." over and over again.

I must be loved.  In my mind I actually could see Grandma Obray, my sweet grandma now in heaven, standing next to where I worked threatening that sewing machine to behave.  You wouldn't ordinarily think that Heaven would be the least bit concerned about a little white dress, but on that day, Heaven was.  I was able to get that dress together from it's very shabby state with not a problem, other than one broken needle- easily fixed.  It was a total miracle in my mind.  

We tossed that dress on my girl, put her hair up and decked her out in all sorts of baubles.

Bam!
A real American PRINCESS!

It's wedding day?  

Bring it on!
Walking down the isle...

Sitting so quite for...like........forever...

Walking back up the isle after the wedding was over...

Awe!

And celebrating afterwards.  The dress managed to stay on her!  Yes!
I am awesome!  Just kidding.
I thank Heaven for that one.  It was their miracle, not mine, that made the dress fiasco a success.

And there you have it.  Really my first dress made from scratch.
Love it!

1 comment:

  1. I love the dress! I could easily see me having the same issues as you - tons of great plans, but hard to get them all accomplished in time. You did a great job with all of it.

    ReplyDelete

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