Mother of the Bride Dress

Grandma made my Aunt Joylana’s wedding dress in the 70’s. Of course, grandma still had the pattern. Grandma made the wedding dress and bridesmaid dress using view 4 on the front of the pattern.

Here are the dresses in all of their 70’s splendor.

For her own “mother of the bride” look, Grandma chose view 2 from the pattern front. There’s Grandma, looking stunning in her choice. Sadly the marriage didn’t last, but thankfully, the polyester did.

Grandma kept all dresses, all of these years, only for me to find her dress hanging in her closet. It fit me, but would I ever wear such a formal, 70’s, polyester dream? Probably not.

I mean, check out these sleeves. Plus the sleeves were a little short on me, Grandma was much shorter than I am, thus her arms were shorter too.

The flare is fantastic, but not for me.

Grandma would never want a good dress to go to waste, so time to alter it into something that I will wear regularly.

First I took apart the hem, saving the lace that Grandma used as hem tape.

Then I took off a little length….over 16 inches of length…whew!

Sorry sleeves, this is where we part. (Sort of, I did save them for a possible future project, waste not want not!) But boy did I hear a lot of comments about taking these sleeves off. Some people thought they were the best feature of the dress. I agree! BUT the sleeves did not fit me.

Reusing the lace as hem tape.

Hemming up the sleeves….

But wait….I can’t let all of that excess off the bottom go to waste!

The finished product! Complete with a matching draw string purse!

I will definitely wear this regularly!

I learned some new tricks of the trade , by seeing how Grandma constructed this dress, so she taught me something new! Hopefully my grandchildren will find it hanging in my closet someday, and make it their own! So as for me onto the next!