18 Dec 2023 Wedding dress is sewn into treasured Christmas tree skirt, table runner
By Emily Walter
The idea for the Christmas tree skirt came from my mother and grandmother. My grandmother, Helen Gay of Jonesboro (Craighead County), was a master quilter and an amazing seamstress. She turned my mother’s wedding dress into a Christmas tree skirt many years ago and Jeremy and I were approaching our 20th anniversary and realized that we hadn’t seen my wedding dress since the day we had it shipped off to preserve.
Of course, I showed my daughter pictures of it over the years and always asked if she ever wanted to wear it but each time, she said she wanted her own, which is totally understandable. In 2022, our daughter was a senior in high school and we were approaching our 20th anniversary. My mom, Jo Yawn of Jonesboro, and I had been discussing the possibility of having her make the dress into a Christmas tree skirt as my late grandmother had done for her. We even tossed the idea around that if there were enough fabric, I would also love to have a dining table runner made from the dress. Our dining table is more than 10-feet long and seats 10 people, and it’s impossible to find a table runner of the correct scale. But that’s all we did—we talked about it, but I never had the guts to pull the trigger.
One day, my mother was visiting, and we decided it was time to send the dress back with her. She measured my table for the runner, and we discussed my vision for it and for the tree skirt. And so, I went to my closet and found my gown neatly tucked away in its preservation box, and we opened it up to take a look. I knew at this point there was no going back.
Mom and I examined the dress over and over deciding what parts would be used where. It was decided that my front bodice and back bodice would be used on each end of my table runner. And the remainder would be used as my tree skirt. I also gave her my under slip in case she found a way to use it. It had nylon netting and a small lace border at the bottom. I wanted all neutral colors for the tree skirt so that it could be used for generations and work with anyone’s Christmas tree, but I didn’t want an all-white tree skirt. So, I asked her to make a white and gold skirt with silver mixed into it.
Mom shopped for various fabrics over the next few months without touching the dress. She was trying to get the vision in her head. Because once the dress is cut, you can’t go back. There is no room for mistakes. Over the next few months, we would talk on the phone, and she would tell me she was still thinking about it, or trying to find a way to start, or just staring at it.
It took her months to complete the projects. She completed the table runner first. Just as we designed, one side is my front bodice, and one side is the back bodice with the zipper and buttons still attached and white satin in the middle. She left the darting in the front bodice but had to hand sew some of the beading back onto the dress as some of the beading came off in the process of disassembling the gown.
The tree skirt is star-shaped and made mostly of my dress with a few more decorative fabrics and Christmas fabrics of white, gold and silver. The lace around the edges is from my under slip, and the netting from my dress and other fabrics were fused onto my bridal fabric to give it dimension and texture. Mom used antique buttons for closures. Then she used the beaded appliqués from the front edge of the bottom of my wedding dress inside the lining of the tree skirt.
Every quilt that my mom or grandmother makes has a label on it. It tells the name/pattern of the quilt, who sewed it, who quilted it, and who it was quilted for or a story behind it. Mom put a label on this one explaining that she made it, the story behind it and a bridal picture of me wearing the dress. To me, it turned out perfect! I now get to look at my wedding dress everyday on my dining table and it shines a little different every year under my Christmas tree. Instead of having it boxed up for no one to see, I now have two beautiful pieces of art, made from my wedding dress, made by my mother, that I am able to pass down to my daughter and multiple generations in the future.
