Marmar's Stitches

I've been working these past few days on my wedding dress with my bridesmaids.  I've heard of the tradition of using your mother's wedding dress, but it is not only the wrong style but way too small for me.  However, because my mom doesn't have any other daughters, she gave me permission to use parts of her dress in my own.

My grandmother was a seamstress, so when my mother was getting married, she made her wedding dress.  The grandkids, including myself, always called her Marmar.  Unfortunately, she passed away when I was 6 or 7 years old, so I didn't really get to know her well beyond a passing memory of her cooking and smiles.  But these past few days, I felt like I got to see some other part of her I never got to know.

In order to use parts of my mother's dress, I've had to take a closer look at her seams and stitch work.  She really spared no details for my mother's dress and trimmed all the darts and seams with a durable criss-cross pattern.  I spent last night wrestling with gathering on parts of my dress, and this morning I got to appreciate the gathering and bunching she did on my mom's dress.  She truly spared no detail for my mom's dress.  She even went so far as to hand stitch lace decorations onto the dress.

It's bittersweet having to take the dress apart to use parts of it on mine.  I'm nowhere near her level of expertise, but I feel more connected to my grandmother through the experience.  I'm proud to be using not only portions of her work in mine but also concepts for seams and buttons in my own dress.