Saturday, February 20, 2016

Aurora's Dawn - A Crocheted Wedding Dress

Aurora's Dawn- 3 months, 108 different motifs, 100's of tiny beads and buttons, and 1800 yards of fingering weight gradient yarn on size C and E hooks.

My sister Aurora was named for the Goddess of the Dawn, so it only made sense that she chose to be married in the colors of the sunrise as she celebrated the dawning of a new life with her Guy. 

For years we have agreed that if she got married again, I would crochet her a dress. Afterall, she sewed my wedding dress (nearly 20 years ago), and once I started designing garments, it just made sense. 
But when she got engaged last June, she gave me just three months to not only design, but create the fabric for her one-of-a-kind 'modern Irish' crocheted lace dress.

Given more time, I might have chosen a lace weight yarn to create even more delicate lace as I imagined for a wedding dress. However, the Black Trillium Fibres fingering weight Gradient Yarn in Apricot turned out to be the perfect thing to create a fabric that gradually shifted in color from palest yellow to the deep orange of the waistband and bottom edge.


I have played with freeform crochet in the past, but not in lace. Inspired by designing Ailee's Wedding Shawl for our first Ficstitches Yarns crochet Kit Club last year, I wanted to explore the technique of joining separate motifs like Irish Crochet was a great excuse to go through the books of motifs and doilies in my collection and try all sorts of different patterns to see how they worked up. With a fall wedding, my sister wanted lots of leaves in her dress, so I made all sorts of leaf motifs, and chose doily patterns with "pineapples" which also reminded us of leaves.


Once I got started, I decided that every motif should be different. I was worried that so many different patterns would be distracting. But as they were joined together they blended into a solid fabric.

As I got closer to the bottom, I added beads to many of the flowers and the bottom edging. I wanted to form a flower garden along the bottom front, inspired by the flowers my sister's new husband has been growing. I included sunflowers for my sister and lilies for her husband, and was very pleased with the final result.


 Tomorrow I will post more details and photos of the process.

Special Thanks to Guy Holtzman for all of the photos in this post.



8 comments:

  1. Laurinda,
    The dress that you lovingly crocheted for your sister is gorgeous! Thanks for sharing so many photos of the dress. You make me want to try crocheting a freeform/Irish garment!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Susan! Yeah, I figure my next one should be something I can wear myself, maybe a sweater. But first working on exploring sweater shapes and styles to see what shape I would actually wear.

      Delete
  2. I have never seen such beautiful and crafty wedding dress ever in my life. You know Vera Vang is my favorite wedding dress designer. I have attended her various fashion events and have seen many women wearing her creations at many party venues. Everyone looks awesome.

    ReplyDelete
  3. When you use a genuine service, you will be able to provide instructions, share materials and choose the formatting style. wedding gown preservation kit

    ReplyDelete
  4. I thank you for the information and articles you provided

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks for taking the time to discuss this, I feel strongly about it and love learning more on this topic. If possible, as you gain expertise, would you mind updating your blog with extra information? It is extremely helpful for me. Maui Wedding Photographer

    ReplyDelete
  6. cool, please guidance so that I can create a blog like yours

    ReplyDelete
  7. Die Technologie entwickelt sich schneller denn je und schneller als Sie denken. Diese aufkommende Technologie wird unsere Lebensweise verändern

    ReplyDelete