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Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Heavenly Fathers Gift - Prom Gown Part 1


Princess and I went looking for prom dresses in December when she was asked to prom. We went to several stores and couldn't find anything she liked or close to what she said she wanted. While at the last store, I got a phone call from my good friend Nancy. 

She is busy in her life and doesn't often call me when she isn't driving somewhere and usually short calls perhaps once every month or two the past year. She asked where I was and what I was doing. I told her where we were and she asked what color dress Princess four wanted. I told her she wanted blue and she asked if I knew if you could dye dresses. I told her it depended on fabrics as some would and others wouldn't. 

She then reminded me that when she got married a few years ago, she purchased a dress that she had altered and then ended up using another dress she found after so she bought both dresses. The first dress was a prom dress and was never used. She told me if we had time, we could drive to her house and look at the dress. She lives far away and even in the city she lives in, she is 45 minutes from my nearest family members so I doubted we would have time to go see the dress as I was headed that far in the other direction to my family Christmas dinner. 

Fast forward.... I got lost in a snow storm after leaving the store. We made a stop at a WalMart and somehow I got turned around and ended up driving way out of our way. As I turned around to come back, I kept taking roads that I thought would cut over and get me nearer to my sisters to drop off princess and get to my party. The streets kept ending in a dead end. As it worked out, we got totally lost and ended up about two miles from Nancy's house. 

I am VERY good with directions and it was almost like I had a mask on my eyes so I didn't notice any street signs taking me out of town. My daughter even told me that the street lights were weird and she had never seen them before. I kept on driving. It was so weird. I know those streets. I know those lights are only in one part of town and it wasn't where I wanted to go so once we arrived, I told her it was as if we were supposed to go there. I ended up being an hour late to my family Christmas party because of it but when Princess came out wearing the dress, she had such a smile on her face. 

Yes it was a bit big on her but the length was perfect and the style and color are so elegant. It is a soft cream color with beads on the bodice and she loved it. 

I should have altered it before now but you know how my life gets..... :-) 

I started by taking the zipper in. I took off the "shoulder" piece that had been added on and took in the bodice pieces but to do that without ruining the pattern on the front piece, I had to undo almost the entire front piece and sew in the sides and keep the front piece the same size. It worked and the front piece looks great and after that, I still had to take it in on the side seam some. 

I didn't do the best job with the zipper if you look closely. I wasn't extremely worried as her hair is going to be down and I am making a bow for the bottom of the zipper out of the shoulder pieces. Even if she went with her hair up, the upper zipper doesn't look so bad. 

As I get more and more done on it, her smile gets bigger and bigger. We tried a few other dresses on but she said she thinks this one is "Classy" and I am still working on it but I think she will look beautiful.

I owe Nancy something special... It seems I always do.... :-) But then again, isn't that what friends are for.... There are many posts on here as I have helped her with three t-shirt quilts as well so I guess it really is what friends are for... helping when you need it and following a "feeling" to call me just when we were panicked about a prom dress. Me getting lost at just the right time and Nancy for thinking of even offering her the dress. I can't help thinking that someone from above kept me driving in the wrong direction just long enough to get to Nancy's house! 
Here is a link to some of those quilts.
 Here is a link to the first one I made for her.

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