Erin brought home her Prom picture just the other day. She is gorgeous and beaming up at her handsome young man who in just two more days will be entering bootcamp and beginning his service in the Navy. It looks like the cover of a romance novel. But this is about the dress.
Prom dresses, as formal wear goes, have be the ultimate dress of the year as the Prom is the ultimate dance of the year. Prom dresses must be second only to the dream wedding gown.
Erin and I looked at a number of dresses, including on the internet (ouch those prices!) but when it came down to the wire she decided that she was going to "design" her own dress. It would be pink and it would float around her, I had a mental concept of something a Disney Princess might wear. Lovely idea. I knew that to come up with this dress I would require comfy shoes and mood elevating drugs.
Shopping for the componants of the dress was challenging. The top of the dress was a pale pink corset in a brocade fabric, easily found at Fredricks of Hollywood (and just keep your naughty thoughts to yourself).
Now the skirt-- it had to be 1) a shade of pink to match the corset, 2) flare out, "poofy" became the watchword of the day, and 3) had to have netting over it. We shopped a number of locations and were about to admit defeat because most places had firmly sewn a suitable skirt to some obnoxious bodice which would be covered in beads or embroidery or worse yet, designs in glued on glitter that would transfer and adhere to you even if you didn't touch the damn thing. I hate glitter, but that's yet another story.
I was beginning to consider how to get the skirt we needed by simply slashing off the offending portion when we finally found a pink satin skirt which could be bought separately. All we would need is to sew the netting over it somehow...I figured my rudamentary sewing skills would suffice. The skirt did not "puff" out sufficiently once it was on although there was enough fabric in it to do so. This was a crucial feature of the overall look (see #2 in criteria above). What we needed was a poofy slip so off we go to a bridal store to see if they had poofy slips.
Mid-May is not a good time to be shopping at a bridal store. I was afraid one of the 7 million brides to be or their entourages (or worse the Mother of the Bride) would lynch me for being so bold as to inquire of "their" saleslady about a poofy slip. I got lucky and hijacked a saleslady as she was trying to slink to the back of the store (probably for a break) and asked her if they sold poofy slips. Yes, they did. Interestingly enough the sizes are way way off. If you normally wear a size 6 she recommended a size 10 slip.
Anyway, after waiting in line at the register for about 20 minutes because they only have one person doing check out and she's busy with the entire female portion of a wedding party and they're making payments using checks, credit cards and cash they're collecting by passing around a hat....well I do finally get to pay more for the freakin slip than anything else I've bought so far.
Now 3/4 of the dress is complete. We go to the fabric store for the tulle.
We found the perfect color; the fabric is a very sheer, very fine netting. I figure to get a nice gather I should buy about 6 yards of the stuff (I had gotten out a piece of paper and tried to do precise calculations "hmm if it takes 6" to make 1" of gather and the waist measurement over all that skirt and slip is about 28" then how many inches and divide by 36 - sheesh I'll just wing it.")
I decided that the way to go was to hand gather the tulle and sew it inside a wide ribbon, fold the ribbon over and stitch it together for a waistband leaving lenghts of ribbon at the ends that she can tie around her waist over the skirt. Voila! Erin finds the waistband ribbon and also buys a length of tiny pink satin rosebuds to sew to the corset. We're set. Well, that's not quite right...Erin is finished, I still have work to do.
I start hand gathering the tulle. This is not as easy as I thought. Keeping a straight seam and keeping the gathers somewhat equal means I really have to pay attention and although I'm sitting in front of the tv I don't really watch whatever is on. I begin to worry that 6 yards was not enough...an inch of gathered material takes about a foot of fabric this stuff is so fine.
Two evenings later the gathering is done, Prom is in 3 days. I tell Erin to measure out enough ribbon to tie around her waist and mark where the ribbon will meet yet still leaving lenght to tie it. She does and I pin the tulle to the first and last mark then make sure the gathers are equally spaced inbetween and pin. Looks like 6 yards is fine...whew
During all this sewing, which I'm doing on the living room couch, I'm slightly concerned that the cats will find the tulle irresistable and want to climb on or under it or play with it. Inconceivably they ignore it unless it's in their way.
Day before the Prom, its all done. Erin tries it on, looks fabulous, just needs to be trimmed at the hem. Erin perches at the top of a stepladder and I start cutting. Again, I say, Voila!
So she goes off to the Prom all beautiful and pink and I'm thrilled to have been able to be a small part of her evening. This stuff is important and I want it to be a great memory for her.
Posted by Dawno at June 11, 2004 11:31 AM