Congratulations on your daughter's engagement! You have 6 months until October and that's a good thing. It's so special that you will be making her veil : )

I've never made a veil. I'm hoping Annie (AnnieDeighnaugh) will see this post and give you some guidance. She is very helpful and is sure to have some thoughts on this for you.

Laurie

Here is a link that might be useful: Annie's wedding veil post

Tulle is the usual material used for veils. There's no need to hem it, won't ravel. I wouldn't use organza, the weight of the lace might weigh it down. You don't really need a pattern, usually the tulle is just gathered and attached to a covered comb.

What you want is called Bridal Illusion. It's a soft very fine netting. Tulle is stiffer, larger holes in the netting, and is typically used for tutu's.
Bridal illusion will support a lace edge, and is soft enough to drape well.
In addition to buying it to make my daughter-in-law's veil several years ago I bought bolts of it at SewIt Seams in St Louis, MO as we used it to decorate a too-big space and it's very inexpensive.
Online I found a good source here. Scroll down a ways on the page.
You need to know that "diamond white" is a different color than "white", that you can get it with a sparkly sheen or plain, it also comes in ivory, and I've seen it in blush although that's harder to find.

Good luck with making the veil.
Marji

Here is a link that might be useful: Millinery_Bridal_Supply

I agree that bridal illusion is what you want. (I got mine at Jo-Ann's.) Make sure you get the right color too...white vs. ivory will make a huge difference depending on the color of the dress.

You will also need to experiment with stabilizers. For the veil I made, I ended up using a wash away stabilizer, though they also make a tear- away stabilizer.

In fact, buy extra and practice until you are comfortable with the process and results so that when it comes to the real veil, you will be confident in what you are doing.

If you are sewing on a lace with a straight edge, then I would suggest you cut the veil larger, mark with disappearing ink where you want to sew on the lace, zig zag over the straight edge of the lace with invisible thread (monofilament), then carefully trim the excess illusion away from underneath the lace (don't cut the lace or the stitching) and you are done. (Practice first using regular thread so you can see where you stitches are going.)

If instead the lace is shaped, then you will need to practice doing machine applique with the lace as you will need to stitch the lace down all along the shaped edge. (If you've not seen free motion quilting, take a look at you tube to see how it's done...it's a very easy and relaxed motion that you use as you control the stitch length and placement rather than the feed dogs.) I would still use a zig zag stitch and be careful with placement of the stitches at inside and outside corners so the corner is tacked down.

{{!gwi}}

Use regular contrasting thread at first so you can see what you are doing, and you will want to drop the feed dogs on your machine so you are able to move the fabric as you wish. You may find you can do ok with pinning the sandwich (stabilizer, then illusion, then lace on top...sometimes you may need stabilizer on top and bottom, depending on the materials), but if not, then get a large embroidery hoop and try hooping it all together to hold the fabric firmer and to give you something to hang onto while you are sewing. (I was working on smaller pieces and found hooping gave me more control.)

When you are ready and are comfortable with what you are doing, then switch to the invisible thread and you'll be amazed at how good it looks.

Again you will need to trim away the excess carefully, once your lace is attached.

I'm not seeing the pic you linked above....

Oh...I see the pic now...

If she wants a short veil that will cover her face for part of the ceremony, then you will probably want a narrower lace...you don't want the lace to cover her face, and you want to keep it in scale with the total size of the veil.

Can we see a pic of the dress?

Here is a link to a more complete thread on the veil I made.

Here is a link that might be useful: Wedding veil

Ok....we purchased tulle. Extra in case I needed it. I made a short veil last week with a narrow trim sewn all around the edge. Was not satisfied with the trim and that is my fault. I bought 3 spools of narrow scalloped lace with small white beads, resembling pearls. The beads are a continuous string of beads all the way down the center of the narrow lace.

There was only 2 yards of this lace per spool, and 2 yards is only going to go so far around the edge of a veil. Because of the small beads, I had no idea how to sew 2 strings of this lace together to make 1 long piece of lace. That probably would not have looked right either because I probably would have stretched the width of the lace trying to do so.

All I knew how to do was turn the beginning edge of the 2nd spool of lace under about 1/4" and place it over top of the end of the 1st spool that I had already applied, and keep sewing. I couldn't do that well enough so that where the 2 pieces of lace met would not be noticeable.

I'm only using one layer of tulle. Should I have done a rolled hem around the edges? (I didn't since I knew tulle would not ravel). I do have a serger, but haven't practiced doing the rolled hem yet. From what I'm understanding, the rolled edge is only done if you want to use 2 layers of tulle to make the veil.

I didn't use the above pattern. I found a bridal veil tutorial online and used that instead. It didn't take long to make. The most time consuming was sewing that lace on and getting the edges of lace/tulle even and trying to start the new string of lace. So....I'm going to try making another veil.

This post was edited by donnas on Fri, Aug 8, 14 at 22:35