Another Beautiful Bride, another Wonderful Wedding!

So, like the buses, they all come at once! I've had three wedding dresses to do this year, and each has had its own distinctive beauty, reflecting the character of each bride. What I so love about making wedding dresses, is that the girl's input, along with my design and sewing know-how always ends up with something unique, but reflective of the bride, which you can't really get with an off the peg number (and rarely will you find one of those with SLEEVES!!)
This latest one was a real joy to make, both because of the lass's lovely personality, and because of the fabric she chose which was a rich pure silk ivory taffeta, with a distinctive shawl collar made of silk jacquard with a rose pattern woven in.

(All Photos courtesy of Peter L Jones)

 The ceremony was an Eastern Rite Ukrainian Catholic one, so a new experience for many of the Bride's Latin Catholic friends. There is a lovely crowning ceremony, and I think the dress really did make the Bride look like a queen!

Below are some details of the dress, with its shawl collar and the veil which was also made especially to go with the dress. The dress had silk covered buttons with a front opening so that the shawl collar could be all in one undisturbed piece around the back.

  The veil was made from a pure silk tulle in ivory. The Bride wanted it to cover her hair fully, and we agreed it would look nice with a lace edging. Providentially, I wandered into an antique shop one day and found some lovely antique English net lace, exactly the right colour and width! This was hand-stitched in place to form a beautiful frame for her lovely face.

Many Congratulations to the King and Queen of the Day!

Joy and Sorrow, with Hope.

I have been asked to make a few items recently which seem to fit into the cycle of life.

A gift set to send to Australia, for a new, much longed for baby, not quite yet delivered!

The gift-giver was quite specific in what he wanted, something "Traditional" in white, but not to look as though it were for a Baptism... hence the touches of green, with elephants marching across the bib. The set is made from a very fine cotton lawn with satin weave and embroidery details, and touches of antique insertion lace, all lined in cotton lawn (apparently, it will be hot in Australia when the baby gets to be old enough to wear it!)

The next project completed was for a Polish wedding, soon to take place, but as it hasn't yet, I can't really reveal "The Dress". It's for a lovely Welsh Lassie, who's marrying a dashing Polish Gentleman! Suffice to say, it involved a lot of piecing of extremely pretty lace, and swathes of silk satin, lots of buttons and a bow!

Sneak preview! Two different laces have been invisibly joined prior to piecing the back part of the bodice. 

The back after completion!

The last item is of a more sorrowful nature. It made me reflect on how fleeting life is, and how we should all prepare for death. A widow-to-be is expecting her terminally ill husband to die soon, and wanted a special mantilla to wear at his funeral. She had a specific idea of what she wanted. As I looked at the image she had in mind, I realised I would have to cut, shape and piece together lace. It was a time-consuming project, involving a lot of hand-stitching, all around the edges of the inset pieces of lace. But I found it a very moving task to sit quietly sewing the pieces together, and pray for her and her husband and family, and contemplate my own mortality too.

The first stage of shaping the lace edging around the dotted net. It was coming out bigger than the recipient wanted, so I had to bring the edging in more.

After completion.

When I started Zelie's Roses, I had little patience for hand sewing, wanting to get things finished speedily. The more I force myself to spend time creating things by hand stitching, the more I appreciate what Zelie Martin used to do in her lace-making! I hope I'm now of a level for her to have employed me as someone who pieces the lace together, since I still don't have the patience, or skills, to actually make lace!!

I like to add all the people I sew for to my prayers; a safe delivery for the baby and mother, a joyous and Christ-filled marriage for the happy couple, and the consolations of St. Joseph and Mary to be with the dying man and his family.

Recent Shenanigans

Well, the busyness of the business has been taking over to the degree that I haven't managed to post anything much lately. So here's a random selection of what Zelie's Roses has been up to...

A winter wedding dress of pure silk

It started out as some very large circles - I am so grateful that I have my wonderful cutting room floor!

And became a very elegant flowing gown, with almost a 1940's feel...

Then to carry on the circles theme, I managed to make a couple of circle skirts for a little lady...

Who chose the teapot one for her first day back at school!

Whilst I'm also working on several altar frontals/tabernacle veils, I did manage to get this one made in time for Easter...

This was it being tried on for size, during Lent, hence the purple Tabernacle veil!

Oh yes, and somewhere in between all that I managed to pop in a set of vestments for the Shrine Church of St Augustine, and the National Pugin Centre. It included an Alb, Chasuble, Cope and Mitre.. as well as a Monk's habit. As it was to be a Pugin-esque Chasuble, I was very blessed to find just enough vintage orphrey banding to make it look sufficiently authentic....

You may well ask how I managed to do all that in such a short space of time, well, they are meant for children on their educational visits to the centre, so didn't have to be too perfectly finished, although I did spend time making sure they were robust! I hope to get some pictures of them all being modelled in the not too distant future.

And just as I thought I could settle down to some serious work on a real-life full-sized Chasuble that needs to be ready for an Ordination in June, a Bride to be in distress got in touch asking if I could make her a Wedding Mantilla Veil, as she hadn't been able to find anything big enough, and her Wedding was in two weeks' time! Happy to oblige, I fortunately had some lovely lace in stock so was able to come up with this...

Now, back to that Chasuble...(and the next Wedding dress I'm working on too...!)

Super Model Mantilla Modelling!

I made a lovely mantilla for a super young woman who does a wonderful job for the pro-life cause.  She had expressed a desire for one that had scallops all round the edge, so with my trusty embroidery machine I managed to find a way to copy the shape of the scallops that were already along one edge of the fabric, and came up with this,

I just hope the modelling agencies don't come after her,

we wouldn't want her to stop her good work!

It's a lovely soft cotton-embroidered lace, (so hard to find decent laces of that sort at a reasonable price!) It did take a long time to make, so doesn't come cheap, but it's well worth it if you want something spectacular.