Bridesmaid Dresses

Now that enough pictures have surfaced on facebook for me to borrow, I figured it was finally time for me to post about the bridesmaid dresses I sewed for Marianne's wedding.

A friend, Chloe, and I worked together; she sewed three of the dresses, and I sewed the other three.

We used the same pattern that I used for Marianne's medieval-inspired dress. However, we did some things differently.

Before I started on the dresses, I had come across this post by Olivia, in which she has pictures of a very cute cap sleeves design. I thought it was super cute and decided to make the cap sleeve option (View B) with a similar design with the bows. However, some of the bridesmaids preferred short sleeves, so we decided to alternate between the two styles, and also discovered a way to work in the bows into the short sleeves as well. It turned out quite well, I thought.

We used cornflower blue satin (JoAnn Fabrics Casa Collection) for the dresses. I think I may say with assurance now that cornflower blue is one of my favorite colors. It's so beautiful. And the satin was fun to work with-- except that it does fray a bit. But then, I had my trusty serger to take care of that. ;-)

I made "Margaret's" and my dress a couple weeks before the wedding, but saved the last until the week of. Silly, right? Reason: I have this problem where I kind of like to fit the dress as I go *just in case* it's too big, small, doesn't fit right, whatever. So I really wanted to make sure this dress fit the bridesmaid right, but she lives all the way in another state. So she came the Sunday before the wedding to stay the week with us, and I made up her dress that week. Everything was done on time, I didn't have to hold things together with pins and duck tape.... so, all was well. :-)

The day of the wedding came, everything went smoothly, I enjoyed wearing my beautiful cornflower blue dress, had the hardest time smiling walking up the aisle as the maid of honor, had a blast getting pictures with the bridal party afterwards, got a cold and a fever the day after the wedding and laid low the whole next week, and still haven't gotten back to sewing, except I started work on a skirt but haven't finished it yet because I'm missing part of the waistband piece. :-)

More pics for your enjoyment (you'll like seeing Marianne's dress too, though I can't take credit for that by any means ;-) ) :

"Margaret", sister-in-law-in-law Anna (the groom's sister, that is), friend Christie, and yours truly

Margaret, dear Mamma, and yours truly

and yours truly with the bride, my sister and my best friend :-)

Until next time (whenever that may be ;-) ),
Elinor