The first time I did the dress, with the kit beads, I had to start over because the "increases in brick stitch" were nonsense. I've used my past notes and didn't have to restart this time. By hiding the increases throughout the bodice instead of bunched up in one area I prevent it from becoming a giant V pucker at the back.

Notable changes from the original pattern are less colors: I only used pearly white and white-gold beads, as opposed to the shades of red and mauves that made up the past. There's also the removal of stripes from the lower layer, creating a much prettier, finished look. I added lacey edging to the lower hem as well to calm my irritation over the original dress's blunt edge. Didn't include a flower/charm/bow/etc for the hip. Looked for one though, I tried lots of swarovski crystal sizes and shapes, but nothing looked quite right.

Size 11 glass seed beads in pearly wedding white and white with gold-metal-on-the-inside. Size 15 white-gold and gold-silver. The white-gold worked better than I expected it would: it's incredibly soft and brings just enough color in to make it really sparkle. When I picked it I was really worried it would be too harsh against the white, but it's truly perfect. I was going to bring the gold with silver-on-the-inside down to the lacey hem, but decided it does its job wonderfully up at the necklace and didn't need more on the hem. Considered adding color to the necklace pendant but it looks fabulous matching the other lace. All threaded with Japanese One G nylon in herringbone and brick stitches. Uses a rather ridiculous amount of that thread as well: it costs me eleven inches of nylon to create one row of the three-inch skirt's diameter. Used near 8,000 beads in creation (two tubes).

Eugh... difficulty photographing this dress has left me in sort of a sour mood about it, sadly. When I was creating it I was super excited and couldn't help myself from being distracted by the pretty beads I'd picked for it. I think a lot of my WIP shots had better lighting than my final setups were giving me (all viewable on facebook). I found I could get plenty of skirt and bodice photos clearly without fuss, but getting the ENTIRE dress in the shot seems out of my reach. The velvet inside the light box was making it too... eh, thick maybe? The light wasn't diffusing properly as it had in the past when I used it. The main photo here was taken outside the lightbox, placed on top of the velvet in front of my TV. It still didn't turn out as crisp and clear as I would've preferred, but for the next few hours I worked on it I couldn't get a better shot. That all said, there's likely to be updates of this in the future when I'm not so irritable about the camera cooperation.