2008 Prom Dress Project

Back at the beginning of January there was a sewing store that went out of business. It's always sad to see something like that happen. Shawna and I hit it a couple of different times for various reasons. During one of these trips we found some material and a pattern that Shawna begged me to get. She wanted me to make her prom dress. I finally caved and agreed. I couldn't say no to the savings that this would entail.

Normally, Prom dresses can be very expensive. She wanted to remember this as the year that her mom made her prom dress--ahh... how special is that?

We had to buy 6 yards of Satin, 4 yards of lining and 15 yards of tulle. The prices were incredible. What normally would have cost approximately 90 dollars ended up costing us about $30.

Well, I practiced up on my sewing, which I haven't done in years and procrastinated like crazy. I was scared to start a project that could potentially be a disaster. Cutting the pieces out, sewing them together, turning out a dress that looks like a 4 year old pasted material to a manikin is not my idea of fun.

Here we are 2.5 weeks away from Prom and my daughter was getting nervous. We started to make concrete plans to start the project. Last Monday we started cutting it out and made plans to start sewing it on Sunday. We pinned the pieces to the Satin and cut. I held my breath as we made the first incision. That didn't go too bad. Shawna marked everything, which took an additional couple of days and then she laid out and cut the lining by herself. She checked with me before she started cutting and everything looked right.

Sunday arrived! I was so scared! I haven't done a serious sewing project like this in almost twenty years. We started with the bodice front, per the instructions. We had a few sharp words. We both managed not to totally lose our tempers. She began to listen to what I was saying and when I asked for her input I got good suggestions. She did some pinning, ironing, gathering and other odds and ends. After about 5 hours of work we completed the bodice. This coming up Saturday we will be going at it again.

Hopefully, when we are done our efforts will look like the picture of the young lady in the pattern above. We are doing it in different shades of blue, check out the material sample in the center top.