Making an original Prom Dress

Being an original is important to my daughter and I wanted to make a special prom dress that showed her uniqueness...

We selected fabric and a vintage pattern from Vogue that she liked.

She loved the back of the dress, but wanted a sweetheart neckline instead of the pattern's round neckline.  I cut a bodice out of muslin to experiment with the neckline and to assure a good fit.

I put the bodice together and then used our purchased beaded trim to determine the best place to cut the neckline.

Using the muslin pattern, I cut and sewed the bodice and lining.

Buttonholes for the back lacing

Boning was added to give support to the bodice.

Next, I used lining fabric and sewed together the skirt  pieces.

I machine gathered the top edge of the skirt.

Next I cut a skirt of the tulle to go over the lining skirt.  I alternated teal and plum tulle as I assembled them and then made a second layer in which the teal was layered over the plum and plum over tulle.  This gave it a sort of irredescent look.

To gather the tulle skirt, I used fishing line and sewed over it with a giant zig-zag stitch.

I used double-wide quilt binding and stitched the tulle to it.  Then I removed the fishing line and sewed the lining and tulle to the bodice.

The dress is finished, but we decided the bodice front was too plain.

I drew out a pattern for beadwork on a piece of paper the used graph paper to make it proportional.  I transferred the pattern to tissue paper.  I put the tissue paper and a piece of black organza together held with an embroidery hoop. Using a needle and nylon thread, I beaded the design onto the organza.

When the pattern was completed, I cut away the organza and began to sew it onto the dress bodice.  as I attached the pattern, I cut away the organza that was holding it together.

THe finished dress...