A Look Back - Prom Dress Project from 2011

I am not entirely sure how I managed to miss posting about this dress. I think I must have gotten very busy with SOTB or something at the time.

Anyhow, this is a prom dress I created for my sister back in 2011... it's been really interesting to go back and look at how my technique has improved since then!

This is just a random design that I did that my sister happened to stumble upon and fall in love with. Which I was pretty excited about because I would totally sew all of my designs if I had the time and money. I love it when people actually commission them!

We wanted to keep it budget manageable, so we went with cheap string pearls. Which wasn't 100% ideal but worked, as you'll see later.

This was kind of a weird dress to line. On the side you can see the underskirt panel, which I sewed into the lining fabric. Not exactly how I'd do it if I were repeating the dress - I'd make the dress three layers instead of two to get a fuller skirt.

The pink fabric was pretty slippery and not stable at all... really crazy to cut out.

I had to add darts for a proper fit.

Coming together nicely!

I sewed the boning directly into the lining. Again, this would have worked a bit better with three layers instead of just two.

Loops for the lacing in back!

I had my sister wear the dress for the hemming, to get it as perfect as possible.

I had to hand tack the loops in because they were so slippery.

Here you can see the back lacing prior to the modesty panel's insertion.

Oops! Some not so lovely puckering here.

Fixing the puckering.

Modesty panel.

Tacking in the modesty panel.

All covered up!

Tacking the ribbon on. (At this point I got very busy, so my sister took over and hand stitched on the ribbon and beading).

Getting ready!

There are obviously changes I would make if I were doing the dress again, but all in all it turned out pretty snazzy and it was really special to send my sister off to prom in a dress I designed. How often do you get to do that?