Wedding Sewing

Growing up Florida-Cracker poor (you're poor but everyone around you is too so it's okay) in rural NW Florida, our family was blessed to have gifted seamstresses in the family.  My Aunt Betty and my sister Carole could take a piece of fabric and make it into a work of art.  Of course, I didn't always see this as a blessing.  Especially when the same bolt of cloth was used to make identical dresses for several of us.  This meant I got to wear the dress once as my dress and then a year or so later as a hand-me down from my older sister, Debbie.  My niece Lisa got the worst of it, she had her dress and hand-me down versions of the same dress from Debbie, me and my niece Vicki.  Lisa has several years worth of school pictures all taken in the same dress.  On the plus side, we had an in-house source for glamorous party dresses -- no outsourcing in our family. 

Once I left home, I dabbled in sewing.  I didn't have the gifts of Aunt Betty or Carole but was contrary enough not to not like the limited options of RTW clothes.  I taught my daughter Sarah to sew at a fairly young age.  Turns out that it does skip a generation -- Sarah is a wonderful seamstress.

Even so, I never thought we would attempt to sew a wedding dress until we went shopping for one.    My sister Bobbi (Sarah's MOH) cried every time Sarah came out of the dressing room in a wedding gown.  Bobbi also cried every time anyone else came out of the dressing room in a wedding gown.  She even cried for a young woman trying on prom dresses.   Crying (or squalling as Bobbi calls it) is her thing. 

Sarah didn't cry but she also didn't find a gown that truly suited her.  So the rather insane idea was floated:  why don't we make one?  Actually there were lots of reasons not to make one but one overwhelming reason to try:  my daughter had a vision of what she wanted and I believe as a mother one of my duties is to encourage and assist my children in making their dreams a reality. 

Sarah and I learned a lot about sewing, about ourselves and about our relationship during the year it took us to design and sew the dress.  Sarah even learned to tat so she could make lace to add to the dress as a homage to her Grandmother Gwen who tatted.  It was one of those experiences that you get to the other side and think "I'm glad I did it but I wouldn't want to do it again." 

Apparently I am a slow learner because I am now making a wedding gown for my son's fiance, Nimela, as well as a tuxedo for my son, Kyle, for their upcoming wedding. (More posts to follow with details of garment construction.) 

Even though Aunt Betty, Carole and Grandmother Gwen are no longer with us, their talents still inspire us and make us push our own limits.  I am grateful and recognize what a blessing it is to know people who can make art from the most basic of materials.