Unveiling the Veil

When I started looking for veil inspiration, I wasn't sure what I really wanted. I had tried on a few veils while dress shopping, but nothing really caught my eye (and at $$$, I wasn't really into buying a veil anyways). While I was shopping at JoAnn's one afternoon, I decided to stop by the pattern section to look for veils. It turned out that the patterns were on sale for $1.99 and I ended up finding one that I thought looked okay.

"F" is the pattern I decided to use, minus the bow. I also decided I wanted a two-tiered veil instead of one-tiered and I wanted to add lace trim. Before I go into the details of sewing a veil, this is a list of supplies I bought (from JoAnn's, all on sale):

• Pattern: $1.99
• 6 yards of ivory bridal tulle (based on pattern): $12
• 4-5 yards of ivory lace*: $15
• Clear thread: $2

*Had I bought just lace trim, I probably would have spent less. However, since I have so much leftover (~5yards), I will use the remaining lace on another project (not sure which project just yet).

Cutting the Tulle and Sewing the Veil:

The main reason I bought a pattern was so that I would be able to get the shape of the veil that I wanted. I layed the pattern on the floor over the first 3 yards of tulle (this was the first layer of the veil) and cut the fabric accordingly. After the first layer was cut, I repeated these steps for the second 3 yards of tulle.


Instructions for sewing the veil can easily found in Mrs. Taffy's tutorial (they are the exact same as the pattern instructions). For two layers, simply pin the two layers of tulle together and sew according to Mrs. Taffy's instructions. I decided to wait until the end of this project to sew the veil onto the hair comb.

Sewing on Lace Trim:
Unfortunately, the JoAnn's that is close to my house does not have a large selection of lace trim. (I wish I would have gone to the north location first, because they have a good selection of bridal trim). Even though I didn't find trim that I liked, I did find lace by the yard that had a nice edging. I bought enough yards (see above) and cut off the edging from the lace.

I put my dress on and I held the veil to my head at approximately the place I wanted to place it to figure out if the length was right. I thought the veil was a little long, so I placed pinned the tulle about 8" from the bottom edge of the veil, using the edge as a guideline. I found that sewing on the lace worked best if I spread the tulle out on a flat surface. I sewed lace on the bottom layer first. After pinning the lace on the veil, I sewed through the top-most embroidered sections of the lace like this:

When I got to a place where I needed to start a new length of lace edging, I overlapped the edges and pinned them like this:



I then continued sewing though the cross section of lace and onto the new section. I came back later on and sewed the two sections together and trimmed any remaining ends on either lace section. After the bottom tier of the veil was finished, I proceeded to the top tier. I hung the veil from a bookshelf (so that the tiers were hanging down), and started pinning lace edging to the top tier of the veil. I pinned the lace on the top tier so that it started at the same point as the bottom tier. I then gradually moved out so that the lace on the top tier fell just above the lace of the bottom tier.

I sewed the lace to the top tier using the same process I used to sew the lace to the bottom tier. When I was finished sewing on all the lace, I carefully trimmed all the tulle below each layer of lace edging. I then added a hair comb per Mrs. Perfume's post.
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The finished product (sorry for the fuzzy pics):

Are you making your own veil? What does yours look like?