Friday, August 9, 2013

Transforming the Flower Girl Dress


Remember the Flower Girl Dresses from last month? If you look at the second photo in the post you'll see my great niece off to the right. She will be baptized next month and her mom wanted to use the dress for this occasion. I removed the sash and overskirt, luckily I didn't follow the pattern directions to sew everything into the seams. I found this tulle in my stash, starched it so it had a bit of body, then made a new overskirt. I used a zig zag to finish the hems and sew the seams together and it worked quite well on this flimsy fabric. The dark with thread at the top is the gathering thread. It is Mettler gimp with a zig zag over it. All I had to do is to pull on it and the skirt gathered beautifully. After whipstitching the overskirt to the dress, I cut the end of the gimp and pulled it all out. Perfect!


I made a self fabric sash and attached it to the dress. That tuck in the center really bothered me, so I took it out. This is polyester, so it doesn't gather as nicely as silk does, and I thought the tuck would be needed. It turns out that it looks fine without it.


And the back. Yes, I did follow the sash tying instructions in A-Z of Sewing for Smockers, I just need a lot more practice.

A note about the wedding. The little girl who wore this dress has an abundance of energy, more so than the average toddler. During the reception, she would go out onto the dance floor and dance around by herself, so many of the guests, including the bride and groom, formed a circle around her and danced away. I love weddings like that! After all, those little darlings are an important reason for getting married.

1 comment:

  1. What a lovely and clever transformation! You put so much time and effort into this dress, but it was worn for two important occasions. Really beautifully done.

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