Wedding Dress Revisited...

You know those wedding gowns that Meri and her friends have been playing dress up with? Well one is mine to cut up. Both came from Freecycle.org. If you don't know what that is... well, frugality is just not your middle name... We got them for free. Someone was giving away a bunch of them and I took two. Meri claimed one and the train of the one that I claimed.On Friday, I talked with one of my sisters who is expecting a baby in the next few weeks and she was asking if I had some fabric and a pattern laying around for a baptism dress for my newest niece. Of course I thought of the wedding gown. However I thought the dress was off-white and thought she might not like me to use it, but she was fine with that. So I get the honor of making the gown! I made the baptism outfits for all three of my kids. Someday I'll show them to you.

So I cut the whole front panel of the dress off and noticed there were lots of water stains on it. Checked it out online to see how to wash a satin wedding gown and found some good advice. They said to fold it up and stuff it inside a lingerie bag before sticking it in the washer and don't use bleach. Two things I would not have thought of! The lingerie bag keeps the seed pearls and sequins from banging around the sides of the washer and breaking off. hmm! Oh! And make sure you wash on the gentle cycle!

I pulled it out of the washer and noticed that it's actually pure white satin! The off whitish-ness was due to aging, I guess and it was just yellowing. The lace still had some spots in it, so I washed it two more times. Every pearl and sequin still intact! Then laid it out to dry.

If I EVER get married again, I'll know not to invest in $100 to have it professionally cleaned!!! No offense to those dry cleaners out there!!! But you're for the squeamish...

And just to relieve my husbands fears... I'm NOT ever going to get married a second time unless you and I decide to renew our marriage vows in order to get new towels. Now THAT'S a thought!

Anyway... the satin in all it's glory is cleaned and ready to go. While it was washing the first time, I cut out the pattern on some stash fabric and it went together so quickly I thought I'd have it all done this weekend, but time got away from me yesterday and I decided to watch The Birds with Meri instead last night...

Sorry Melanie! But I've got a few weeks... Tonight will have to be the night instead... Unless Meri wants to watch North by Northwest... She's into Hitchcock at the moment.