The pig wot got married - the dress

I'd always thought I'd make my own wedding dress. I knew it would test my sewing skills, but I like a challenge. However, the experience of making 4 bridesmaids's dresses for my sister's wedding made me rethink the idea. Even a simple dress takes lots of work to make it look good, the materials alone cost a lot and I decided I didn't really need the extra stress. So, a complete DIY was out of the question.

Then there was the matter of what sort of dress I wanted. I toyed for a long time with the idea of knitting myself an off-white Elfin Bride with beads, and wearing it over a corset and swishy skirt. I still want to knit Elfin Bride someday, but I was pretty sure I wouldn't have enough time to knit it in secret and I wasn't sure about getting it to fit as I wanted. My weight's fluctuated a lot over the last couple of years and I wasn't sure, even with a corset, I could get the tight fitting look I wanted without it being too tight.

Enter Wedding Bee. Where I came across beautiful lace dresses. Of course I now can't find the ones I fell in love with, but they were all lace, long and sleek in silhouette, often with a deep v neckline, no ruching or weird pick ups, just yards and yards of lace skirt and trains. I was in love. I also had no idea how I was going to find such a dress in a bridal shop, let alone afford one. I didn't want to spend hundreds and thousands on a dress, but I did want to feel like a bride.

Thus, I arrived at eBay. One night, having had a brief chat with some friends about looking for wedding dresses, I decided to have a search on eBay. I was vaguely looking at lace and/or vintage style dresses, wondering what I could find. There were very few all lace dresses, in fact I think I only found one. It looked good, the right necklace and a gorgeous waterfall train of lace ruffles - just enough ruffles to make the back gorgeous, but not enough to overwhelm the overall shape. I bid, not really expecting to get it, but reasoning that if by some chance I did, if it didn't work, I'd resell it. A few days later, I won, and not even at my maximum bid.



A few days later, she arrived, folded up in a box, all ruffly and lacey and ivory and beautiful. I tried her on at once and was instantly in love. This was my dress, for sure! She didn't quite fit, in fact getting the dress to go over my hips was impossible, but I figured I'd lose some weight with 6 months or so to go. This was wishful thinking!

Over the next few months, I kept looking at wedding dresses. Not totally seriously, but wondering if I should have a back up plan in case my slimming into the dress plan failed. But my dress was still there, waiting in her box. I knew, however much I looked, I wouldn't find anything I loved as much. A month or so before the wedding, it was obvious I wasn't going to fit into my dress as she currently was. A drastic plan was needed. While looking up how to make a bustle, I found advice on how to let out dresses, including the advice to create a lace up back. Lightbulb! At that point, my dress had a zip with little buttons alongside it. Easy to do up, in theory, but less forgiving of a variation in size. A post on an OBB forum gave me exactly the information I needed to make a lace-up back happen.

With less than a month to go, I went home to my parents' for a few days, where my dress was being stored, shopped in John Lewis and my new favourite haberdashery MacCulloch and Wallis and set about making my dress fit. I took out the side seams, almost all the way down and let them out as far as I could, removed the zip and created lacing loops along the centre back seam. I was pretty desperate and not at all sure it was going to work, until the moment when my mum laced me into the newly altered dress for the first time and suddenly, it all came together. It wasn't a perfect fit, but was it good enough and way better than it had been at first.

When it came to the time to put on my dress for real, I felt gorgeous! The dress hugged my curves in all the right places, swished at the bottom and trailed behind me beautifully. At my mum's insistence I added some tulle to the front neckline, making it a little less decollete. On the day, I felt beautiful and I felt like myself. What more could you want?



In lots of ways, I struck lucky. I didn't venture into a bridal shop, apart from a brief look at Oxfam's bridal shop in Cambridge, so hadn't even thought about the shapes that suited me. I was shopping based on fabric, rather than shape per se, and didn't really realised how fitted my dress was until I got it. In the event, I think the mermaid/fishtail/trumpet shape suits me well. The style is Begonia by Marylise. The few photos I've seen online really don't do it justice. I'm so happy I had the confidence to do the alterations that needed to be done. The overall cost was much less than the fairly modest amount I'd budgeted for it and there's no way I could have made something similar from scratch for that price. I've not seen a dress like it in the weddings I've been to recently, which makes me quietly happy. So, even if I didn't make it myself, I ended up with a dress that was unique, beautiful and very me.

Photos by Dave Routledge.

bridesmaids' dresses

bridesmaid, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

Rather a lot of the past 6 weeks has been spent making bridesmaids' dresses. With a chocolate brown and lime green theme, it was the easiest way to get four dresses which (semi) matched. This is mine, which I spent most of the day hoiking up. Oops. Not as well fitted on the bust as it could have been.

The pattern is Vogue 7848. The fabric is (scarily expensive, but rather lovely) silk satin from Borovick's. I don't have pictures of all four of us, but here's Anna, along with my gorgeous sister Hannah.



My other sister Debs is 33 weeks pregnant, so she needed a different style of dress. This isn't the best angle, but you can see the empire line and straps of her dress (Burda 7630).



The silk was a little intimidating to cut and sew, but with some patience, fine pins and lots of tissue paper, I got the hang of it. It felt gorgeous to wear and looks pretty good in the photos I've seen. Debs felt a bit too hot, but I think she'd have been too hot whatever she wore. The silk sashes tended to slip very easily, of course. I'm pleased with my work, though it has put me off the idea of making bridesmaids' dresses for my own wedding. I want to make my own dress and I think I'm going to have enough on my plate without adding 4 more. Though maybe I'll make a dress for the smallest bridesmaid...

me in my dress

me in my dress, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

This is the finished result of my dress-making exercise. As you can see, the final dress is in a different fabric from my original. I decided the sheet I was using was far too thin, so turned it into the lining and used some bold flower fabric bought from Walthamstow market.

I'm very pleased with the result. It's the first time I've used boning and once I'd got over my fear, it was easy to use. I also used my machine's blind hem stitch for the first time. It's OK, though a bit of a fiddle. I'd use it again if I didn't have enough time for a hand-stitched hem or had yards and yards of hemming to do all at once.

Looking at this picture, I can see that the lining is showing a bit. I made it about 5mm shorter than the outer layer, but I think it needed more. Or some more careful adjustment of lengths. I was running out of time when I got to the hems and just wanted them finished. If I had had more time or patience, I would have tacked the hems, tried the dress on and got someone to help me with getting the length right, rather than judging it on my own with the dress on a hanger.

Overall, this project did what I wanted it to do - gave me some sewing practice, got me familiar with this pattern and how to make it fit and provided a finished dress I could wear to some friends' wedding. I now feel more confident that I can make the bridesmaids' dresses I offered to make and that they'll look good.

a change of craft

All pinned on, originally uploaded by the pig wot flies.

I haven't done any dressmaking for ages, but when HP asked me to be her bridesmaid in August, I jumped at the chance to make my own bridesmaid's dress. I'm using Vogue 7848 (as used by Jen). It's a simple style and similar to a dress I already have which suits me. I think it will suit the other bridesmaids too, and be simple to alter, if needed.

I'm trying it out with an old sheet and if this one goes well, I might wear it to a friend's wedding in April.

Of course, the trouble with old sheets is that some parts are significantly more worn than others. I cut the front centre panel out of the middle of the sheet since it's cut on the fold and I wasn't really thinking about it. This means that it is much paler and thinner than the panels surrounding it. If I weren't hoping to wear this dress, that wouldn't bother me too much. But I like it so far. I don't think there's enough fabric left over to cut another front panel, so I might just have to live with it.