The lace border

I really shouldn't even post these pictures, because I want there to be some element of suprise on the wedding, but I can't stand to not show everyone. The lace added to the skirt of the dress changes it SO much! Shown below is the border that goes around the entire hem of the organza overskirt. I applied this by machine with a zig-zag stich, and that worked fairly well. It's not perhaps as flat looking as it would have looked if I'd sewn it all by hand, but it was a LOT faster, and I think it looks pretty good.

All the pieces above the boder (the ones that aren't attached to the boder) were leftover from the original border. Once I cut the motifs apart, there was just enough to go all the way around the skirt once, making the boder deeper and more intricate. That was pretty amazing because we didn't plan it that way at all! We just happened to have that much extra. I guess Mom's habit of always buying too much fabric comes in really handy sometimes!

It took me forever to decide how to place the extra motifs around the border--I pinned and re-pinned and tried all different ways, but I finally decided to arrange them with equal weight all around the skirt (rather then putting more in the back or on the seams for instance).


I am now in the process of of hand-sewing all the extra motifs from the bodice lace to the skirt. I'm very pleased with how that looks--it's transforming the dress into a work of artistic design, in my opinion. I am so happy with how it is going to look...but you will have to wait till the wedding to see it!

When we bought the fabric, I was hesitant about using organza for the sheer overlay because all the rtw dresses that I liked used some sort of extra strong tulle type material that had a little stretch to it. Unfortunately we couldn't find any of that sort of material, and didn't have time to special order it, so I made the decision to go with organza. It was still sheer, but it didn't have that same type of texture as the tulle overlays, and I was worried about it looking right with lace on it. But needless to say, the organza seems to be working really well. It does have a slightly different look though--a little more body and shine vs. the drapey soft look of the tulle base. I wonder why none of the rtw dresses never use organza for their lace base? All the wedding dresses I've seen with sheer lace overlays have a base of this super-tulle material. By the way, if anyone knows where to buy this tulle that I'm talking about, I'd love a source. I'm sure it's available somewhere, but I don't have any idea where!

Jessica