Two weeks ago I was handed a pile of dresses and told that all they need is trim and lace. I’ve done some of this in the past so it wasn’t a big deal. I didn’t realize how many there were, though. I put five together and I still have seven more to go.

This is what the dress blanks look like when I get them. I have to cut the arm holes in them, trim the edges, sew the pockets for the ties, and then dress it up with lace and/or ribbons.

To be honest, I don’t mind getting these. It leaves me with the best, and most fun, part.

The only thing is that I don’t get to pick the fabric. I have to take what I’m given and figure out what I might have in my stash that will go with the current pick.

Please forgive the color. I had to take the picture when it was dark outside so the light in my dining room kind of yellowed everything.

On this one I used the lace that looks like it was crocheted. Luckily I happened to have the orange lace that I used around the bottom cuff. Hobby Lobby had it on the clearance shelf, and though I didn’t know what I would use it for, I couldn’t pass it up. I’m glad that I didn’t!

This one was slightly more difficult because I don’t have any lace that goes with either the blue or the green that is in the cuff. I had some brown lace, which there is brown in the cuff, but I thought it might look a bit odd. So I added a thinner white lace on top. I think that it works. Maybe.

You can’t tell, but I wanted to tie in the pink of the cuff with the one pink strap that I made for the ties. So, again, I layered the lace at the neckline. I used a soft pink on the bottom and a cream lace on top to match the cream lace around the hem.

This one was a fun dress to trim. I used the bright pink for the arms and ties, and then a soft pink around the hem. I was tired of using lace at the neckline, though, and wanted something different. I had this silky pink ribbon so I sewed it on and then tied it. I think that it turned out really cute!

This fabric up top was so busy that I knew I wasn’t going to dress it up too much. The thing was that the ladies who made it had used a really bright green on the bottom that I didn’t think really went with the print on top. Luckily, though, I had picked up some lace off of Hobby Lobby’s clearance rack that matched the green in the print almost perfectly. It’s a wider lace so I decided to lay it over top of the cuff. This way you can still see the bright green underneath, but it mutes it a bit. Then I used a softer, wide lace at the neckline to pick up the white in the print. I’m fairly happy with this one.

Just seven more to go….