Lacey things!

My mother got married in the 1940's and had this incredible wedding gown made out of hand embroidered lace, a satin underdress and a pair of matching lace fingerless gloves with a dozen satin buttons running down the back side of them. *Sigh* Beautiful.

She said that as soon as she saw the material in the store, she immediately knew it was what she wanted... and no wonder. This dress is AMAZING! Soon, my grandmother was sewing away, shaping that amazing lace into a gorgeous Victorian wedding dress.

But that was nearly 70 years ago... and this dress has had a LOT of mileage put on it.

2 years after mom's wedding, Aunt Marian wore the dress to marry Uncle Jack. It looked LOVELY on her as well.

Some years later, I saw the dress and fell in love with it, wanting to wear it for my wedding. The only problem was that I stood nearly half a foot taller than my mother and easily 30 lbs heavier. I tried to starve myself several times, hoping to fit into that beautiful thing.

At one point, it worked! I weighed less than my dear petite mother, but even then, at 123 lbs, my shoulders and bust still wouldn't fit into the dress. Though I tried... HARD... I could never get all of the 30+ satin buttons attached across the back span of my shoulder blades. Grrr!

Maybe if I starved myself to 110 it would work!

Or not...

I forgot that, while the bottom of the back had lots of sweeping lace and satin to spare in its train, the front hit somewhere well above my ankles... barefooted. No matter how hard I tried, the dress was just never going to fit me!

Wah!

All through my young adult years, I hung that dress on my wall and admired it. Unfortunately, my body never shrunk to it's size...

So, it was used for school plays and put through the wringer of abuse. Still, I remained in love with it. When my mom retired from teaching, she gave it to me!! I'm not sure why, but I didn't stop to ask any questions. I repaired the gaping holes in it (thank you school plays) and lovingly re-hung it on my wall where I could ogle at and admire it... thinking that maybe, just MAYBE, I could fit in it if I were resurrected.

Nah... I keep forgetting about the height thing.

In 1988 I got a phone call from my mom. Did I still have the dress [duh, of course] because my sister wanted to wear it for her wedding. Dang! Why was it that everyone else was going to get to wear this dress but me? I made a new satin under dress for it, fitted it to my sister and she was a glowing bride in the most beautiful wedding dress in the world.

I selfishly recovered the dress after the wedding (well, it WAS my dress still) and took it home, hanging it up, once again, to admire in all its frilly beauty.

So PRETTY! *sigh*

In 1989 I began photographing models in it and drawing the pictures into Victorian note cards. They were pretty, and at least someone was wearing my beautiful lace dress. Then in 1997, while working with the young women, we made a deal with the girls that as soon as they finished their personal progress, we would do Victorian Photo sessions. Talk about motivation!

I had several costumes for it, including my own wedding dress, but those whom God had blessed with a naturally petite body got the added bonus of posing in the lace dress.

Wow. Some of them were stunning!

In 2000 we held a road show in our ward. Not only was I involved in writing and producing it, I was also in charge of furnishing all the costumes for our cast of 75+ people! Fortunately, it was a Victorian theme ["Hey, if we write it in a Victorian theme then I already have several costumes, blah blah blah..."].

I did too. I had probably 4 or 5 entire costumes.

I think our costume budget was $75, so I started buying striped sheets and collecting old church shirts and pulled out my trusty sewing machine. There was talk that our costumes were too spectacular (we won best costume!), that there was no way we had stayed within budget, but it wasn't true. We actually had money left over. Sheets go a LONG way! They were amazing... if I may say so myself. Ahem...

Front and center in the production was the lace wedding dress, lace gloves and a lace parasol on yet another beauty that God had blessed with a tiny and petite frame.

Unfortunately, the dress didn't fare so well this time and sustained several gaping tears. But that wasn't the end...

I used it on a model for a series of "Victorian Days of the Week" cards, showing a card for "Wash Day", "Baking Day", "Sewing Day", "Market Day" and so forth. That was a fun project!

In between all of these uses, the dress has hung on my wall, where I could continuously look at it and dream that someday, I will magically shrink in all directions so as to fit into the beautiful lace gown... complete with amazing lace gloves!

Lately, it has really starting to show its age and this past week I decided that it was time to take it off the wall, ever so gently wash it once again and then begin the arduous task of sewing up all those holes. They ranged in size from 1/8 of an inch to gaping disasters of 10" or more in all directions.

I'm here to tell you that repairing antique lace is a very time consuming thing. Often I had to remake the very lace itself with my needle and thread. However, tonight I finished it! And it is beautiful once again.

Perhaps its greatest mission is still ahead...

This past week, Savannah photographed a new model who was accepted by my publisher to represent "Hannah" on my new book covers! [Yay! No more evil looking lady!]. It was a mad dash to get the pictures taken, edited and submitted all in time (with plenty of frustration that my costumes were all here, 1,000 miles away from the project).

The book goes to press on October 11th and the cover designer still needed time to figure out her part of the artwork, but by some very great miracle, it all came together and happened.

I was overjoyed!

Then I realized...

In 3 months, the cover for volume 2 goes to press!

Our Hannah model is very thin and petite... and we actually have time to get model and costumes into the same place as the camera.

Voila!

In the end, we will be able to immortalize my beautiful lace dress on the very front cover of a book... my book even! And that was almost as good as wearing it myself... almost.

I think this will be the final mission of my beautiful Victorian dress. I may even retire it to the realms of my cedar hope chest. Maybe one of my granddaughters will be petite enough to wear it one day... (not likely; they're all in the 99th% of height and weight for their age...) or maybe they'll marry someone small and one of their daughters can wear it... or maybe one of my kids will have a genetic throwback someday... something along the size of my mother.

Somewhere, someday, in another world and lifetime... I'm certain that I will wear it too... with 6 more inches of embroidered lace magically and seamlessly added to the bottom.

And the world will then be a perfect place!