My Mother of the Bride dress

Drum roll please.......LOL...... Yes it is done! All I need to do is wash and block it and that shouldn't take too long, but I am going to wait until after my sons graduation party in June when I will be a little more relaxed and have room to do it! I took these pictures and my youngest daughter is modeling it. I was going to but then she said I probably wouldn't like the pictures she took so she offered to model it. We are basically the same size except her boobs are a little bigger than mine and she is more shapely too...but heck I'm almost 49 and she's 17!
Here's the front:



The back:



And here are some close ups of different sections so you all can see the beads I put in too. I only put a few beads in starting just below the hips down to the bottom of the dress:






















As I was trying to find just the right pattern to make my dress, I was reading some old posts at the 'ville and ran across a very similar dress made by someone who also did her own version of a Lily Chin dress
and I just loved it! I had remembered the dress but really didn't like it for me until I saw this girls on the ville and then decided if she could do it, so could I! The bodice was just ideas of what I found and liked in different patterns. I have always liked a shell stitch so I knew that was the stitch I was going to use and then I basically just followed instructions from Josi Hannon Madera for the fitted tank. I took lots of my measurements so I knew exactly when to increase and decrease and it just worked out wonderful! Now if I gain a few pounds between now and July, and manage to get the dress on....I may need scissors to get it off again! I am very small busted so I didn't need to worry about darts or anything like that which is good because I wouldn't know a dart if it bit me in the tush! (well I guess I would know what kind of dart that was!) My best guesstimation of how long it took me to do this is six weeks. I crocheted on it every day for between 1 and 3 hours, except for just a few days when either time or schedules wouldn't allow. If I had to drive anywhere I of course couldn't work on it, but if we went somewhere and the Hubster drove I was crocheting! And at Mother's Day I took a couple of days to make my Mom the socks just because I needed a break from the dress. I was so close to finishing and found myself hurrying and really messing up so I put it down for a day or so and made the socks and the hot pad.
I used Red Heart Luster Sheen and a "D" hook. It only took 4 skeins with a little left over in the 4th. I have enough of the LS left to make a matching shawl. I am using the pattern from the Go for Baroque sweater from the Happy Hooker to make a little rectangular shawl. I will probably only wear the shawl in church since it is air conditioned and usually I get really chilled in church and just need something for my bare arms. And one of my Pals over at Cal Pals suggested making matching jewelry with the left over beads...hmmm good idea and I just may try to tackle that, time permitting.
I am relieved to have this done, now I can concentrate on my sons graduation party and getting the rest of the things done for the wedding that I need to do! All of the silk flowers are bought and I just have to put them together! She has picked out very easy to do bouquets and very summery looking too! It will be good to be able to work on them without having anything else hanging over my head...but wait...there are still other things that need done too...oh well...one thing at a time right?! After all I have a little over 30 days to get it all done! Wish me luck everyone! I really do love working under pressure! It's when I do my best!
Wishing you all happy days ahead!