White wedding dress to modify

Since prom I found a solid white wedding dress that has no embellishments on it.  This type of dress thrift shopping (junking) usually sells for about ($50.00 and $125.00 but it had mud on the edge of it from the hem to  4 to about 8 inches up everywhere including the under petticoat layers).  It was priced at $12.00 I assume because of this I talked to the manager and asked if that was the best price as dry cleaning would cost about $40.00 and may not get it out.  So he sold it to me for $10.00.  This dress has a label in it from Dave's Bridel in Orem so I decided to look on-line and see about how much it cost originally ... $349.00 dollars on sale right now for 198.48 so $10.00 I am doing good with this dress ( Satin A-line with Asymmetrical Skirt).

On the off chance I could get the stain out myself without paying the dry cleaning fee I turned the dress inside out and tossed it into my front loading washing machine on a gentle cycle with several extra pre-washes and extra rinses ( this is what we do at the costume shop where I work to wash wedding dresses for plays).  So I thought I would give it a try. I hung it to dry did not toss in dryer.   Guess what the stains came out looks almost brand new now.  Where it looks a little old is the hem where it dragged and snagged.  But since my daughter needs about 2 inches cut off anyway that part will go away.  Because it does look like a wedding dress all white I will be adding color to it in the form bead work and the like.  We originally were going to add robins egg blue piped cord to it around the front piece and matching bead work we had a hard time finding that color.  So that has been changed to Royal plum instead now.   Here is wishing me luck to embellish this one for my daughter who likes fluffy dresses and make it not look like a wedding dress so much.  This is for the daughter that had the green dress above.  The bead-work is planned to come in from the left side of the torso and fade out into the rest of the front panel piece.  The under part in the front will be left plain.  This is also a strapless dress which means my daughter will have to wear a shirt under it and a jacket over it to. Which gives us another spot to add color to pull it out of the wedding dress look it has.

Prom beadwork and refashioned dress

My daughters went to prom last month and I never showed the bead-work I did for them or should I say that we all did for it.

My oldest daughter wore a grayish blueish dress found thrift shopping brand new with tags on it for ($20.00) which I left as I found it.

So her pieces are one boutonnière and one hair piece both had shades of blue in them.

The young man she went with loves soccer so we added a soccer ball to his item. Which you can see to the left in the left photo.  I made the flower my oldest daughter made the leaves.

For the hair piece my oldest daughter yet again made the leaves with silver lined bugle beads and I did the rest of it.  I like that we can now work on projects like this together.

My middle wore a dress I found thrift shopping ($15.00)that was all green.  I decided to add hot pink embellishments to it.  So a pink sash got added as did pink flower sequins with a white faux pearl bead in the middle of each flower.  I also added a hot pink jacket to make it more modest and she wore a mod bod in a neutral skin color to also make it more modest as the original dress was strapless.

 

I also added double sided satin ribbon shoulder straps to make the dress have more support as dancing can make dresses drop and I did not want her to fight her dress all night.  Below there are still pins holding the sequins on.

 

This daughter had a hairpiece, and a corsage.  She went stag as she was too young to have a date but she met up with friends at the dance to hang out with so she had people to dance with that were also too young to have dates.


Corsage on the left hairpiece on the right in the photo below.     My middle daughter did the leaf work I made the flowers.

My middle daughter made the necklace you see in this post originally it was for her older sister but she ended up giving it to another girl in the group.

And so it begins... Trek

My family is LDS ( Later day Saints).  One of the things we like to do as Mormons is to remember our past and look to the future.  One one way of doing that is to go on trek.  My family this summer all 5 of us will travel together to do a four day trek.  I hope this will be a very binding experience for my family.  The start of that is to sew clothes for my family to were during those four days.  Two outfits per-person  for my family that means 8 dresses, 4 aprons, 4 bonnets, 8 pantaloons... 2 shirts for my husband ( he will buy his pants I think).  So this is the start of that project  I could make blouses and skirts but that is harder to me to carry more items so I will make dresses. 

I found some of the fabric at walmart the striped one the cream with tan flowers and the white with blue flowers.  Not were I usually shop for fabric but it was 2.50 and on clearance and a very light weight cotton so I think it will work well especially since this is only for four days did not want this to be terribly expensive.  The rest came from my stash of fabric the plaid i used for little woman and I will be using it again using the same pattern I used in little woman.  In fact all 8 dresses will be the same pattern in the exact same size  as me and all my daughters pretty much wear the same size dress these days which will make this go faster.  One of my daughters the youngest has actually passed me in height recently so this will not last long that we can do this.

If you want to see the dresses pattern  all fancy for plays follow these links below.  But for trek I will make them much more simple with less layers so my daughters and I do not over heat.
from Little woman
Amy's blue  dress 

Jo's red dress

Meg's blue dress

I also made a brown one for beth and two gray ones for beth but not sure I ever made a post on them and a gray  black white one for jo but never posted about them.

Beth's Gray dress with pink trim and Amy's blue dress with apron

Beth's Brown dress with 100 year old lace  Amy's blue dress Jo's  red dress

Amy's first dress with red trim and Beth's brown dress

Jo's dress black white gray with red flowers this was the actresses favorite dress of the play

Beth's dress with White trim Meg's Blue dress

The first dress all the sister's in little woman wore for act one all the same dress pattern just embellished differently to make them look different.  Amy's red and gray dress Meg's blue dress Jo's red military dress and Beth's brown dress

So this is a pattern I have made at least 7 times already  i think actually 8 times and will make 8 more times I can pretty much make it in my sleep these days.