Susie's Wedding Dress Quilt

First, the before shots:
So beautiful, right?

I was able to take a look at these pictures in advance and those diagonal layers caught my attention right away. I decided that I really wanted to leave them intact if at all possible. Keep in mind, though, that this is a tiny girl - the dress was size 6! - so if I left the bulk of the top intact there wouldn't be much to work with. Still, I was hopeful that it would all come together.

First I cut up the skirt, or at least, I cut up the part of the skirt that I was able to use for the back of the quilt, while leaving a lot of the top alone:


Then I took the bodice and below (about to the knee) apart:
Here it is laid out on one of the underskirts. I had really wanted to use the underskirt for the base of the top of the quilt, but it was sewn together with lots of curves and it didn't lay flat no matter how I pulled:So I bought a pretty piece of sateen and used it as the base instead.
And then I attached the lace over-skirt from the front of the dress to the bottom of the quilt so that it looks like an actual skirt:
And I used the beautiful long lace over skirt from the train to accent the triangles I'd used for the back:



The bodice up close:
A monogrammed hankie used at the wedding:

Front:




Back:






And a special treat: I finally figured out how to work my video recorder on the camera so voila! A little YouTube of the finished quilt!

Front:


Back:


All quilts by kate are one-of-a-kind originals. A quilt like this would be priced at $450.00.

Finished August 2009.