45 Days to Go: Barbara’s Donation
I’ve had this amazing piece for close to a year – Barbara sent this to me last October and now it’s making a debut! I have a wedding to attend for some dear friends and knew I could make this piece work!
Here is the story….many, many years ago, I was given this ‘vintage’ unfinished sequined dress. I was supposed to fix it up, breathe life back into it, and make it something fantastic, but that never happened. Skip forward to today, I am cleaning my closets and trunks and there it is, as sparkly as ever in my cedar chest, but sad and unwearable. I hope you can rock it and make it into something really fun to wear! I can hardly wait to see what you come up with. This is a VERY special piece to me and hard to part with but it will just sit there forever, otherwise. I have had it for at least 25 yrs and hope it will make your list!
Barbara’s Donation Dress!!
I loved the sequins, but there was a bit of discoloration and there was no zipper!!
Zipper-less!!
There’s lots of work to complete on this and I can’t wait to get started. I grabbed some tools…
It’s Dye Time!!
…and got started!!
I decided to give the dress a new shade of color!! Using a bit of Evening Blue – I only used about 1/4 cup for a full washing machine because I wanted the color to be subtle on the ivory – I set a delicate wash on hot to dye the piece. When it was complete, I added the dress into the dryer on a delicate cycle for about 10 minutes before hanging it to dry.
Post-dye dryer tumble!
After the piece was dyed, I headed to the fabric store to snag a zipper in a matching shade! I found one that matched the sequins perfectly at an 18″ length.
Matching Zipper!
Because the bodice of the dress is all sequins, I pinned the zipper down and then hand stitched it in place. This was definitely time consuming, however I did it while catching up on Tivo’ed shows. (Finally finished Newsroom and caught up on my newer obsession Four Weddings!!)
Hand stitch that zippy!!
I got the zipper in (yay!) and then began work on the neckline.
Neckline Trim!
I trimmed a 2.5 inch section down the center…
Time to fold under!
…pinned and then hand stitched it in place.
More hand sewing!
With the major stitching finished, I got working on the final little dress accessory! I wanted to bring some darker shades of blue into the piece so I figured a fabric flower at the waist would be just the way to do it!
With some organza from my collection, I cut it into strips (about 3″ in width) and set up four different dye baths to change the aqua color.
Organza dyeing!
I dipped the organza into RIT’s Navy Blue, Evening Blue, Aquamarine, and Denim Blue and let the pieces dry!
Many shades of blue!
I took the strips of fabric and wound them around each other to make a larger sized rosette. When I created the perfect shape, I rubber banded the end (bottom) of it, trimmed the edges flat, and then sewed it in place!
Twisted Sister!
I fell in love with how this dress turned out and couldn’t wait to wear it to M & D’s wedding!
Wedding dress ready!
I think the flower rosette is fun and playful, while bringing some darker shades into the piece at the same time!
Flower ECU!
I hopped in the cab channeling Veronica Lake, LA Confidential was just on Sundance Channel and I was inspired…
Veronica Lake?
…and shuttled on over to the Reg Bev Wil (totally á la Pretty Woman) for the festivities!
Reg Bev Wil
After a lovely ceremony, confetti filled the air, and the bride and groom made their way down the aisle.
Mazel Tov!!!
Seriously, cannons shot out confetti. It was like I just won American Idol, the amount of fun tissue paper bits that floated in the air!
Confetti Toes!
The reception began right after…
M&M&M!
…and we hit the dance floor, hard! CB brought out his Broadway stylings below and rocked it! (Not even joking…he just finished Sister Act and is prepping for his next Broadway show beginning this spring!)
CB rocking the dance floor!
Got to hang out with my girls…
M & J
…while taking ample table breaks to down water and smell the insanely beautiful roses.
Yes, I actually took time to smell the roses!!
This was the perfect dancing/party dress!!
Dress in Action!
And speaking of dresses…M’s insane wedding gown took 82 yards of fabric to complete those stunning (and heavy) embroidered flowers.
82 yards of fabric!!!
CB and I hammed it up and took what became our favorite “fierce” picture of the evening. Yeah, we took multiple “fierce” shots…this was just our fave.
Best Dance Partner Ever!!
I was obsessed with the cake…it felt like something out of a fairy tale!!
Mmmm cake!!
We took a final pic with the Newlyweds…
The Newlyweds!
…before one last pic wearing CB’s vest!
“See my vest, see my vest, made from real gorilla chest!”
I leave you with a video that just couldn’t be resisted 
Everyone else made YouTube vids of the song of the summer, so I decided to close out Summer ’12 by jumping on the Carly Rae Jepsen bandwagon.
Barbara, thank you SO much for sharing this dress with me. This has to be up there on my ‘favorite pieces’ board along with all the amazing memories that were created in it!!
