Post­ed Sep­tem­ber 9, 2013 Part of the Katie’s DIY Wed­ding Series

Floral Bridesmaid Dress

Pat­terns:

McCal­l’s 6518, Sim­plic­i­ty 1606

Nee­dles Bro­ken through this project: 1

I could­n’t wait to  get start­ed on this project!  Every week that I saw the fab­ric lay­ing next to the oth­er fab­rics, I itched to get start­ed pat­tern­ing, cut­ting and sewing! I loved the col­ors with all the oth­er fab­rics, jew­el­ry, shoes, and threads!  Below we were test­ing the thread col­ors next to the fab­rics to see what flow­ers to do! (Which no flower deci­sion has been made!)

To save me time, I used a cou­ple pat­terns to guide me through this brides­maid dress. I used M6518 for the skirt and Sim­plic­i­ty 1606 for the bodice. (As seen below), I cre­at­ed mock-ups to test the fit. Even though each pat­tern was size 10, I need­ed to add adjust­ments to waist place­ment and slack.

Below is a snap­shot of the mock-up.

I’m knock­ing out anoth­er brides­maid dress for a friend’s wed­ding (day before Katie’s) with the same skirt pat­tern. So the skirt in the pic­ture is actu­al­ly a not-yet-hemmed  & rolled down dress.

As seen in the pho­to, I took in the cen­ter of the front bodice.

Below I read­just­ed the pat­tern for the final pattern/cut. I sim­ply slit the mid­dle and took 3/8″ off each cen­ter front and taped the front bodice pieces back together.

Next I cut, serged, machine stitched, pressed, and hand stitched the pieces (and lining…which I lined with the same fabric)!

Final­ly very very late one night, I fin­ished sewing all the pieces (and lin­ing) together!

I was so excit­ed to try on the dress and show my sis­ter! And I was even more excit­ed to be one step clos­er to fin­ish­ing my projects!

But unfor­tu­nate­ly when I tried on the dress, I hat­ed the print on me! It was too much and over pow­er­ing! I was very dis­ap­point­ed and my sis­ter and I tried to fig­ure out a solu­tion. Then typ­i­cal opti­mist Katie says, “Don’t wor­ry Mary- wear what­ev­er you want! Plus I don’t want any­thing match­ing at the cer­e­mo­ny! What about that dress you made last month?” True. I could wear the dress from July, but I just put time and pas­sion into this flo­ral dress!

After drop­ping the dress (both phys­i­cal­ly and men­tal­ly) for about a day, I came up with an idea!

See what I came up with at/after the wed­ding! My out­fit will be extra special!