sewing my wedding dress

How you add the lace is going to depend a great deal on the style of the gown. Which pattern are you using?

It's Vogue 8020, and I have raw silk fabric and lace with a sequined floral pattern

------------------------------------- Thimbelle

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OK... Your best bet is to mount the lace on the bodice pieces, and make the skirt sections separately, then layer them up to pleat and sew on. If the bottom edge of the skirt pattern is curved, and the lace has a scalloped edge you wish to use, you can carefully trim the edge off round the motifs a few inches in and reattach it round the hem. It's a bit of a skiddle, but it works.

You might want to invest in a good book that will help with all the techniques you will need to do this. I like this one: Bridal Couture: A Guide to Dressmaking Skills for Creating Beautiful Custom Wedding Gowns by Susan Khalje

YIKES! Amazon have that at a completely ridiculous price over here! Order it from your library. I paid about £15 for my copy a couple of years back. It's well worth £15-20, but not £100 odd! You can bet your life Susan herself sees none of that money!

That is really odd! I purchased my copy in 2004 for $20.37. It must have become a highly desired "collectors' item".

The other bridal gown book I like a lot is "Bridal Gowns: How to Make the Wedding Dress of Your Dreams" by Susan E. Andriks

Pages 43 and 44 of "Couture Sewing Techniques" by Claire B Shaeffer have some great illustrations and tips for dealing with lace.

You probably want to sew the silk and lace "as one" for all the bodice pieces. Mount the lace to each silk piece, then sew the seams through all layers.

For the skirt, complete the side seams for each layer separately, then put the lace and silk together, and pleat together at the dropped-waist seam before sewing that seam. I would sew the side seams of the lace either in very narrow French seams or over-lapped seams, trimming away the excess close to the stitches.

I'm guessing that the pleated version has no flare to the sections, so you should not have to deal with "shaping" the hem of the lace.

Where the zipper extends into the skirt is a little trickier. You will want to sew the zipper to the silk

*only*, and let the lace flow free. Fold the edges of the lace seam allowance in at the waist seam *before* sewing the seam. You may want to make a very small hem in the lace along the zipper opening.

If the sequins are sewn on, carefully to remove those that will be on seam lines. If glued on, ... good luck.

Depending on how the sequins are attached, you may need to reinforce the sewing of sequins near the seam lines so they don't start coming off too.

--Betsy

Thanks so much for your advice. I will do the skirt that way. The bodice is already sewn together. I was just going to put the lace over the skirt, then changed my mind. I hate to rip out my seams! I wonder if there is a way I could cover the bodice without ripping my seams...

------------------------------------- Thimbelle

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You might try appliqué?

Since lace does not ravel, it should be easy to cut pieces and sew them to the underlying silk. But if you want complete coverage, I would suggest taking the bodice pieces apart and starting over.