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Here comes the DIY bride...

comments (7) May 18th, 2009 in design

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_nikki_ Nicole Smith, contributor
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Photo: Jesse Leake Photography
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Putting a personal stamp on your own wedding can be a fun and exciting challenge--especially when you decide to make your own wedding dress.

On the Etsy blog this week is the story of Eleen and Jimmy and how they planned their wedding with DIY projects made from friends and family.

To get the dress of Eleen's dreams, she sketched out her design inspired by designer gowns and started the project using an out-of-print pattern. To get the perfect fit, she and her mother drafted a duct-tape dressform following this Threads tutorial here.

Has anyone else created a duct-tape dressform of themselves? Or did any of you create your own wedding dress?

Also, check out CraftStylish through the summer for many more celebration-inspired tutorials and projects.

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Comments (7)

LucyJane LucyJane writes: I did not make my wedding dress but I did make the duct tape
manequin when it was featured in Threads Magazine over 10 years ago.

What an amazing and accuracte replica of myself which includes all my lumps and bumps etc. Also I discovered that one shoulder is slightly lower than the other. I am too tall for the stool directions so I got my mits on a sona tube
(used for making deck cement supports). Cut it at the right height, put the dummy on it and steadied it over a cheap
tourtier type free standing light. Glued it all together. Put it on a rolling platform. Then to hide the duct tape I took an old Vogue basic pattern and made a skin tight cover.
At all the vital lines I took narrow ribbon, glued them down to the manequin. Instead of using a tee shirt I used a turtle neck. Filled the neck and made it into a pin cushion.

This manequin is perfect for pinning up hems. My daughter has the same odd shape as I do and I have made several things for her very easily considering she lives in a different state. It really makes sewing three dementional.


Posted: 3:30 pm on November 29th

judymorency judymorency writes: I made my own wedding dress in 1975. Since the wedding was between Christmas and New Year's I took advantage of the seasonal colors and decorations. Just last year, I gave the dress to a young lady who had very little money for her dream day. It looked like it had been tailor made for her. In 1993, I started sewing wedding dresses for friends and family. As a gift to my niece, I created her dress, six bridesmaid dresses, and usher and flower girl dresses as well. For each dress, I started with a picture of what my niece wanted and created from their. The girls in her wedding party ranged from size 6 to size 22. That heavens for dress forms; I live 1,000 miles from my niece so I worked off of measurements only. Three months before the wedding,I traveled to Wisconsin and did a fitting of all the dresses. I had only minor adjustments to make when I arrived five days before the wedding. The day was wonderful, the dresses were beautiful and I don't want to see periwinkle satin for a long time. Three of the bridesmaids had me rework their dresses into cocktail dresses after the wedding. For their first Christmas, I took all the scrap fabric and made a quilt for the newlyweds.


Posted: 9:26 am on October 20th

quiltingfinn quiltingfinn writes: I made my daughter's wedding gown to save money (?) and give her what she dreamed of. It was silver silk and combined a Burda and a Simplicity pattern. The basic style was victorian. We had to dye lace to match the silver color. The reward was a huge hug and a "Thank you I couldn't have had the dress I wanted if you hadn't made it". I learned alot about fitting from one of her friends and got to play with making silk flowers etc. My sister's still are talking about it three years later. We also DIY'd almost everthing else for the wedding.
Posted: 6:38 pm on June 1st

_nikki_ _nikki_ writes: Hi Eleen,
It's so great to hear from you! You did an amazing job creating a very personal and stylish wedding. Congrats!
Posted: 4:20 pm on May 27th

eleen eleen writes: Thanks so much for posting about our DIY wedding story, Nicole! I LOVE Threads *and* CraftStylish and was thrilled to see this here!
Posted: 11:36 pm on May 20th

mominabook mominabook writes: I, too, made my wedding gown. My father had given me $200 to get married on, and I managed to have some left over to start married life. Oh, for the good ole' days. Made my own cake, coerced my piano teacher into playing for the ceremony and held the reception at my sorority house (dry house). Fitting was no problem -- back then a size 10 fit perfectly. How it all has changed.
Posted: 11:11 pm on May 18th

catspajamas catspajamas writes: I designed and made my own wedding gown 43 years ago ... and even though I say it myself, looking at photos I would say it still looks pretty good today! I sewed it on my mother's Bernina sewing machine, which was old even then but which is still sewing to this day.
Posted: 9:30 pm on May 18th

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