My Girls are wearing Vera Wang...

... Yes! That's right. A little over ten years ago, when my sister in law was getting married, I wore this pewter colored 2-piece-dress by Vera Wang as one of her bridesmaids. I have never worn it since (and who does that with bridesmaid dresses anyway...?!).
I am not going to show you a picture of me in the dress, because I don't want you to start convulsing when you see my hairdo. So, here is just the skirt; after I was done with it. Unfortunately, the skirt had some oddly placed stains, which my drycleaner couldn't remove (???) and lot's of vertical seems. So, I couldn't use all of it.

The outer skirt, however, provided enough fabric for the bodices of the girls' new dresses. I think it's Tafetta. I lined it with red jersey from an old T-shirt. The dresses' skirts are made from another long skirt I had made for myself 11 years ago for yet another wedding I attended.

To distract from the color difference of the bodice and skirt I added a charcoal waistband/tie and covered the front with red flower trim. I bought the trim at Joann. They have several different colors of it and I think it's very pretty.

I did not really use a pattern, but based the bodice on the top part of this nightgown tutorial. However, I made it longer, not as wide and turned the back into two pieces.

As a special detail, I handstitched three of the trim flowers onto the bottom of the dress and the matching jackets (more on those in another post).

So, why these special dresses, you may ask?! One of my nieces is having her first communion this Saturday. So, my sister in law will get to see her bridesmaid dress again! It's just going to look a little different now ;-)