Pattern Information
Description:Â Refashioned my old wedding dress, featuring a 6-layer skirt with tulle, silk and chiffon material. I remade this skirt with the 4 layers of tulle, silk overlay and added an embroidered tulle.
Pattern:Â No pattern, simple circle skirt pattern copied from my original skirt design.
Fabric:Â Purchased an embroidered Tulle from The Fabric Store
The above photo shows my 2013 wedding dress in a really gorgeous photo with my older brother and sister. Unfortunately the marriage didn’t last, but I always kept the dress because I remember how enjoyable the experience was designing and going out to buy the fabric with my mum. The dress had been in my wardrobe for the past ten years and I didn’t want to have it rotting away. Given my parents paid for my dress, I also didn’t want to give it away.
Therefore, I asked my mum if she would help me refashion it into something new using the beautiful fabric that we originally purchased from Selective Fine Fabrics. We ended up turning it into a fun day trip, going to The Fabric Store, visiting James Street markets and getting some gorgeous food for a BBQ dinner.
What did you like about this project?
The process of separating the dress was fairly easy because of the design. However, I had to really lay all the fabric down flat and pin it together before cutting out the tulle embroidered overlay. I cut out each layer one-by-one, matching the original skirt design to ensure I didn’t make any mistakes. It was a bit fiddly and took some time getting it right.
Thankfully, the tulle underlay was somewhat forgiving and didn’t need to be 100% perfect. I did end up ditching the chiffon style fabric because it was too hard to reassemble and it was quite uneven under the skirt.
The below photos shows just how many layers are underneath this skirt. It still ended up being a total of 6 layers. I did end up removing the chiffon bottom layer shown here, as mentioned above.
Below is a photo of all of the layers, including the embroidered tulle.
Hemming Chiffon or Embroidered Tulle
I had never sewn with this fine material before so I watched a YouTube video on “How to hem chiffon” because I wasn’t sure if I should do this on my overlocker or sewing machine.
I ended up watching a video similar to the below and opted for option 2, using a zig-zag stitch on my sewing machine. It turned out really fine and simplistic, which was perfect!
Narrowed Rolled Hem Video Tutorial
Once the skirt part was assembled I added an invisible zipper and a waist band.
With the embroidered tulle fabric also being part of the waistband there wasn’t much stretch in it, so it looks a bit rough in the photo above. However, once you had it on and it fits around your body it actually looked really nice. The only thing was trying to come up with a top to match since it’s so bold and colourful.
Below is a quick video snapshot of what this dress looks like on! You can watch it on my TikTok or Instagram.
It might seem a bit daunting to cut up a very expensive wedding dress but I’m so happy I did. This is now a beautiful skirt that I can wear to special events!
Honey Love Sewing 
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