How to bustle a wedding dress with baling twine ... and other tips for the budget conscious bride (posted by Lorri)

Apparently, we are the marrying type in our family.  All four of us (my three daughters and myself) have gotten married in the past seven years.  Obviously, I've learned a lot from all the wedding extravaganzas.  Each daughter's wedding expressed their own individual tastes.
Since I am not a wealthy mom, each daughter had to choose was they felt was really important to include in their wedding.  I gave each daughter a set amount of money, they could either spend it, or receive a check for the balance not spent.  This system worked pretty darn well, I must say.
As any bride knows, it's all about the dress.  Having spent time at bridal stores, it seems the money really adds up with the accessories and the alterations.  I learned to make an elastic loop at the waist so the big fluffy slip (from wedding #1) was reused.  I have since learned that several friends have these slips at their house.  Borrowing one would make good sense.

Kelli's wedding dress (a beautiful beaded dress) was purchased from Ebay for $158, with the tags still intact. I am not a particularly brave E-bay shopper, but we took a leap of faith and ordered it.  I channeled my inner 4-Her and did some pleats and tucks and she looked beautiful.

The dress before being bustled.

Stephanie's dress had a lovely train that she wanted bustled for the reception.  For those who don't live in estrogen land, bustling a wedding dress is a way to gather up the train so the bride doesn't trip and crack her head open.  Well, I didn't really know how to to do this.  Having recently made roman shades, I had purchased a spool of ring tape.  This is a strip of twill tape with rings attached.  I hand stitched a row of this tape inside the train.

Ring tape stitched inside train

 I had run out of drapery cord, so I went to the garage to get the string that we used to tie up our tomatoes.

Bailing twine and spool of ring tape

This happened to be a spool of bailing twine my dad gave me some years back. Worked beautifully, I just tucked some twine in my mother-of-the-bride purse, and hitched that train right up after the wedding. 

The inside of the wedding dress, after being bustled.

Example of table decoration.  Other grains were used also, for variety.

Having handy aunts is always helpful, also.  Kelli and Stephanie married farm boys.  So, Aunt Sherry made table decorations with canning jars, filled with grain, topped with a votive candle holder and coordinating ribbon. Sherry is especially handy with tulle. Kay is always willing to help set up, also.

Wedding programs

We did similar programs for Kristy's wedding.  I used lavender spray paint to spray the paint sticks for her programs. I used quart sized cans of paint applied with a paintbrush for Stephanie's program sticks.  I would highly recommend using the cans of paint with a brush.  The spray paint was messier, and I'm pretty sure that I bought so many cans I was put on some spray paint huffing list at our local discount store.  I used spray adhesive to stick the front and back programs together.

Spy Games Posted by Lorri

My two 007's, Kristy at age10 and Kelli at age 7

Playing dress up was always a big hit at our house.   One of the girls favorite Christmas gifts was when I went to Goodwill, and bought all kinds of fun things to dress up with.  I added some colorful costume jewelry, and they were set.  Many a "Fashion Show" was staged in our basement, complete with flashlights for the runway lights.  I remember when the girls dressed up as spies, as seen in the above picture.  Still cracks me up just thinking about it.

Cows and whatnot - posted by Lorri

Kay is on the left, I am the enthusiastic one in the middle, Sherry smiling on the right.

As 4Hers, one of the projects that all three of us girls did was the Beef project.  Makes sense, I suppose, as we lived on a farm with cows and whatnot in the pasture.  I recall that Sherry really liked this project.  She fed, walked, washed and groomed her cows quite nicely. She ratted their tails, so they had that nice pouffy effect that was fashionable on livestock in the 60's and 70's. She could parade them around the show ring quite well, also.  I remember that I would much rather be sitting at the sewing machine, then improving my "cow whispering" skills.  Don't get me wrong, I like a good steak, and hamburgers are one of my favorite foods. And, I certainly appreciated depositing that check in my college savings account at the end of the Crawford County Fair Livestock Sale. 
Last weekend I saw a young lady wearing cowboy boots with shorts.  Who knew we were ahead of that fashion trend?

The end, part 2

House number 7:  Bohemian style

Paulie on the porch of house #7;  11:30 p.m.

Master bedroom in house 7, Isn't it beautiful!  We made that queen duvet cover in eggplant, the pillows are on the end of the bed , missing their pillow forms.  :)

Sorry, i couldn't get it all into one post. I hope I still have your attention.  By now its 10:00 p.m.;   Two sets of curtains had been hung, with 12 heavy gold drapes to go yet in the  house #7.  But since I hadn't eaten since noon, I was fading fast.  I was really hungry!!! They had promised us food at 10, but where was it?  Kay and I wandered all over the neighborhood looking for the free food. We also wandered in and out of houses, yards and garages.  One of the houses had a brand new sewing machine in the garage along with bikes, toys and books.  One yard had a mini skateboard ramp, one had a fen shwa (??) garden.  One construction crew was grilling pork chops behind one of the houses for their crew.  I almost grabbed one off their grill as we walked by, but I didn't think I could out run them. They were young and in pretty darn good shape.   Finally we found the food tent.  Several companies, like Dole, Blue Bunny, and Krispy Kreme had donated food for the workers.  Fresh fruit, deli wraps, baked chips, ice cream bars, and donuts got us fortified for the rest of the night. We carried a big box of food for our crew back to the church van and checked in at house #7.   Curtain rods for the gold drapes had been found and the hardware was going up. Inside this house  there were three girls painting flowers on the kitchen walls, four people framing pictures in the living room, several people putting together the bedrooms, the designer and a rep from Pier 1 who was providing the decor for the house and 5 of us trying to hang up curtains.And more people going in and out the doors, both front and back.   Accessories and furniture from Pier I sitting everywhere.  Its a wonder only one candlestick got broke.  They didn't even know for sure what they were going to use to decorate the house yet, but they had plenty to pick from. And there was more in the garage!  YOu can see some of it in the picture below.   It was such an adventure and pretty exciting. ( maybe it was all that sugar, but I was having lots of fun.)  Finally we got them all up, and they looked beautiful!

Pillow forms had not ever shown up , but the wallpaper for the master bedroom in house 6 had arrived on a plane from St. Louis.  The wall paper hangers got busy working, and it was only 11:00 p.m.  We walked out side and there on the porch was Tracy and Paulie from the show.  Just sitting there visiting with some of the other workers.  Probably important heads of construction companies, we weren't formally introduced.  I whip out kay's camera  to get a picture and it says:  battery exhausted. (kind of like us)  Even the camera was tired.  Used my cellphone to snap a couple of pictures, but the lighting wasn't very good on the porch in the middle of the night.  Oh well, it still was pretty exciting.  Now we had a decision to make, should we head for home or wait for the pillow forms to arrive.  Since it was now after midnight, we thought it best to head for home.  We were still short one curtain rod, pillow forms and the master bedroom in house 6 was still being papered.  But we were out of steam and fresh volunteers were arriving every hour on the hour.  They were letting a few in each house at a time to work, still unpacking clothes, kitchen supplies, pictures, etc.   We decided to leave some of the work for them to do and pack it up and head for home. I got home after 1:30 a.m. (Phil was in bed shivering without any quilt to keep him warm)  s It had truly been a once in a lifetime experience we would never forget.  To get to help in some small way to give back to these families who had suffered so much.  Two of the families moving into a couple of the houses had lost children in the tornado, all the families had lost their homes and all their possessions.  This was such a wonderful thing that the EMHE team and all the volunteers from every state in the US was doing for them, and it was an honor to be a part of it.  We didn't go back the next day to say in person "Move that Bus!"  but our hearts and prayers are with the families as they begin this new chapter in their lives. 

The rest of the story: Installing our creations

So its Tuesday after school and we've got everything loaded up in Pamela's church' van.  Six of us got to go to Joplin to the Extreme Makeover Home Edition work site.  Kay and I were soooo excited.  After getting through security checkpoint on Conner's street, we drove down the street in front of all the houses.  There were people everywhere, going in and coming out of the 6 houses.  Carrying furniture, toys, household accessories, you name it.  There were  big tents at the end of the blocks with people working away, building things, painting, etc.  On the other side of the street  were travel trailers.  These were the designers headquarters, where we needed to check in. We waiting for one of there assistants to give us our shirts and directions.  All volunteers had to wear the blue EMHE shirt while on site.  Then it was off to our houses, thinking we'd get this done in a couple of hours and be on our way.  Hahaha!  What we found in those houses was pure organized chaos.  Each house has a young little designer who is in charge, with people everywhere, in and out of all the homes.  Each house was in a different stage of being ready.  While we were waiting for our designers to tell us what to do, we got to walk up and down the street and check out the houses.  They are AWESOME! Even the yards were awesome.  We weren't supposed to take pictures, but I had Kay's little camera in my jean's pocket and it slipped out every once in a while and went off. As it got dark, the flood lights on huge poles came on, lighting the whole street in front and in back of each house as if it was daylight.  Every house has a different theme,  from cabin to beach.  While they were beautiful and exquisitely decorated, they were modest homes, not too big, not too over the top, but very livable, mostly practical  modern homes.

House # 6

    But back to what we were supposed to be doing there.  Hang curtains and drapes, but there were no curtain rods in the houses.  O.K then lets  put pillow forms in the pillows.  OH, no one knew where the pillow forms were.  Assistants were sent scurrying to find curtain rods and pillow forms.  So we waited.  We had satin covered headers for a king size bed and king size duvet for a bed.  But room wasn't finished,  wallpaper hadn't come yet.  Its supposed to  be there by midnight, then someone would put it up and then the room could be finished.  Remember, the big reveal was the next morning.  NO problem!   While we were waiting for something to do, Kay and iI decided to find where our quilts were supposed to be. Kay's "We love Joplin" 's quilt's new home was to be in the first house, the cabin style which was the fireman's family's house.  Since it was the first to be revealed in the morning, the race was on to get it finished.  The seamstresses in that house were also waiting on pillow forms and curtain rods.  There were six or seven big hunky construction type men working on hanging a canoe from the ceiling. People were working feverishly everywhere!  As we were waiting for the designer to talk to us, In walked Ty Pennington and a couple of camera men. One of the women with us, Louise ran up to him and asked him to take her picture with him. ( I know, we weren't supposed to take pictures)  He said No, but she didn't take no for an answer. So here is the picture.

He was there to film for the show, so we decided to come back later, we  left out the back and took my quilt over to house 2 to find its new home.  I told the designer in that house that I had the quilt and she said, "NO, a lady is making a quilt for me tonight"  I smiled and said No, i brought this one remember'  Oh yes, she says, I remember i saw a picture of this one, Just put it in the bathtub of the master bedroom and we'll put it in its place when we're ready.  ( that's where they keep the bedding, accessories, etc to keep it clean and safe, in the bathtubs.  The bathrooms are the only rooms in the houses, completely done and ready to go) So off we go to the 'eco green"  master bedroom.  It was so cool, had bed posts made out of real birch trees. It wasn't finished yet, still needed a bottom for the bed, mattress and box springs.  But it made a perfect backdrop to take a final picture of my quilt.

Here I am in front of the drapes in house 6

 Then it was back to house #1.  Ty was gone and we finally got the attention of the designer about Kay's quilt.  She was excited about it and told us to leave it in the master bedroom bathroom. sigh.  So Kay and I both had to say goodbye to our babies in the bathrooms.  We don't know where they ended up,  hopefully in the hands of someone who will love them. And we also hope the quilts will provide some warmth and comfort to the families in those homes.



Finally, someone found some curtain rods, so our work started in house 7.  A couple of our team worked on those windows, so we went over to house 6. Finally the curtain rods for house number 6 were found.  Of course they weren't all the right size, but we adapted.  Did you know you could put several together to make one really long curtain rod?  As we worked putting the drapes on the rod, hanging the rod hardware, people kept coming in and out of the house, putting together furniture, hanging up clothes in the closets, putting away all new dishes, pots and pans, cleaning supplies, everything you can think of that goes in a house.  Candles, vases, fake plants started to appear.  When we could get her attention the designer would tell us where she wanted them hung, where she wanted them to go, how far from the floor they should be, and how many panels she wanted on each window. 

Here is Pamela, her husband Don and Kay working on the big window in house #6

Brocade drapes in house #6, Turned out beautifully!



 

Our incredible adventure: Chapter 2

So after a fun week of sewing, it was back to work for me.  Monday was not only a typical Monday, it was the second Parent Teacher conference day and meant a very long day for me.  Right after my first conference, I got a call from Pamela, our fearless Sewing captain.  One of the designers called her and wanted to know if the quilters in her group (Kay and me) could make a queen or king size quilt done for one of the houses by Tuesday night, Wednesday morning at the latest.  After I picked myself up off the floor from laughing, I realized they were probably serious.  This little designer had no idea what making a quilt involves.  So after I recovered I offered them one of the quilts I made that was presently on my bed.  It is queen sized, a string quilt arranged in rainbow of colors.  They wanted to see a picture of it RIGHT NOW!  Well, fortunately for me, my next pt conference canceled on me, so I had exactly 52 minutes until my next one.  The quilt was at home and I had no picture of it with me or on my computer.  So I jumped in my car, raced home, grabbed the quilt off the bed and hung it from the eagles nest on the swing set and snapped a couple pictures with my cell phone.

Here's the picture from my cell phone, Its sideways, don't know how to rotate it but you get the idea. 

  Sent them to Pamela, jumped back in the car and flew back to Girard.  Got to school at 4:58 as my next appt. was walking into my classroom.  Whew!  Got home around 8:00 p.m.  I was exhausted just from the excitement alone! Threw the quilt into the washer, then the dryer, folded it up and waited.  Then I went to bed.    Got a text at 11:50 p.m. from Pamela that said:  Designer said "YES! Yes!  they wanted my quilt!  Actually, I didn't see the text until morning, good thing, I never would have slept otherwise.  NOw we would be taking two quilts to the install at the site Tuesday night, Kay's and one of mine.  Yipeeeee!!!!!  Of course, Phil was cold that night, said I ripped the quilt right off him and now he was going to freeze at night. I think i can find another quilt to put on the bed, I still have a few left.  Stay tuned, next, the INSTAll and delivering of the quilts.  Truly a once in a lifetime experience. 

Kay and Sherry's Incredible Adventure

Kay sewed pretty much constantly, I measured cut, pinned and put her to work!

Some of our completed projects

T. 

We just had the most incredible adventure!  This weekend we spent two whole days sewing for two of the 7 in 7 days houses in Joplin for the Extreme Home Makeover program.  I have a friend who got selected to be in charge of the sewing for those two houses, so I volunteered Kay, Debbie Potter and myself to help her with the sewing of duvet covers, drapes, curtains,  pillows, etc.  It was so much fun.  We sewed on very expensive designer fabric from China, Belgium, and who knows where else.  It was pretty scary to cut into it. The designers from each house told our leader Pamela what they wanted, showed her a  picture of what they wanted, gave a few dimensions, and handed her the fabric and told her when they needed to be done. No patterns, no real directions, no thread or other supplies.  What a challenge!  There were approximately 20 other wonderful women helping with this huge project. We even reconnected with someone we were in 4-H with years ago who competed against us and her mother.  We sewed all day Friday and Saturday.   We made a king size quilted silk ivory duvet cover, a taffeta eggplant queen size duvet cover, matching pillow shams, lots of pillows of every kind of material you can imagine.  We made 16 curtain panels out of heavy gold upholstery fabric ( reminded us of the 70's) for the bohemian style home.  We made 12 panels of embroidered fabric ( see below)

Embroidered fabric for house 6, picture doesn't due the rich colors of this fabric justice.  It was a tealish taffeta type designer fabric, wasn't really easy to sew. 

 Gold drapes with black ribbon trim  for house 7

 12 panels of a flax burlap type fabric and 8 square cushions.  We were exhausted!  But our adventure wasn't over. As much fun as this was, the best was yet to come.  On Tuesday night, we got to go with Pamela and her husband to install all of these wonderful things in the actual houses!  Picture me jumping and down with joy!!!!  Woopeeee!!!! NOt only that but after seeing a picture of Kay's  We love Joplin quilt, the designers want to put it in house #1, the fireman's new house. They felt it really fit with the decor.  Yeahhhhhh! That means we get to deliver it ourselves!!!!  Stayed tuned for our next post to hear the rest of our wonderful, stupendous, once in a lifetime adventure!!!

A few of the thread spools we emptied over the weekend.  Most of the thread came from the stashes of the seamstresses involved with our sewing adventure.