First Communion Dress

 

Miss M at church

     My granddaughter made her First Communion on Saturday.  She had asked me to make her dress.  She and her mom and I went shopping a while ago.  She found a pattern she liked and found a beautiful lace with pearls.  The store didn't have the pattern in stock but my daughter bought it on line.  When I did start on the dress it turned out we didn't have enough of the lace because it had to be cut lengthwise because of the finished edge.  My daughter was able to get more of it so the day was saved.

Brad holding on the pearl

Pearl removed

Brad after pearl removed

     The pearls from the lace had to be removed from the seam lines so that I could sew it.  The pearls were held on my silver brads from the back,  I used a small pair of scissors to pry the pearl off of the brad.  Rather time-consuming but necessary.

Trimming the bottom edge

     I also had to trim the netting away from the scalloped edge of the lace very carefully with sharp small scissors.

Pattern used

Finished dress

Closeup of the dress

     I did French seams on the lace so no raw edges would be visible and I also did it for the skirt pieces as the fabric raveled really bad.  Construction wasn't that hard once all the prep work was done.  After I finished the dress, my granddaughter decide she also wanted the little bolero jacket.  She wanted the lace outside and the dress fabric as the lining.  The jacket didn't turn out as nice as I wanted as you could see the serged seams but she loved it.