I think it’s ridiculous when I see women dropping serious cash on wedding veils, because unless they’re heavily embellished or jewel-encrusted, they’re a really easy DIY project. Maybe I’m exaggerating, but even if you’ve never made anything before you can make this. The hardest part of making mine was finding the netting. Local fabric stores didn’t have it, so I ended up buying mine on Etsy. If you want the kind I have, with large diamonds, you’ll want to search for “Russian netting,” and you should come up with lots of options. It typically comes in 9-inch wide segments that are sold by the yard, and one yard should be plenty.

Materials:
Netting
Scissors
Needle
Thread
Ruler
Ribbon (optional)
Fork (optional)

Methods:

1. Measure your netting and cut it to 11 inches. You may want your veil larger or smaller–experiment with different sizes before you cut!

2. Thread and needle and knot the end. Holding the knotted end, weave the needle in and out of the row of diamonds closest to one of the short ends of the netting. Make sure they’re complete, uncut diamonds.

3. Once you reach the end of the netting, hold both ends of the thread and gather up the netting until it’s all in one little point.

4. Tie the ends of your thread together around the end of the netting and thread the needle back and forth through the netting a bunch of times to secure it.

5. Knot your thread and trim off both the thread ends and the scraggly ends of the netting.

6. Repeat on the other end of the netting.

Optional
7. Get fancy! Cover one or both ends of your veil with tiny bows. If you’ve ever tried to tie a perfect bow, especially a small one, you’ll know it’s very difficult. I have a secret weapon, though: a fork. Here is how you tie a fork bow, in pictures. You’ll want to start with 6-8 inches of ribbon.

8. Sew your little tiny bow(s) to the gathered end(s) of your veil.

Here’s the bow I sewed to one end of my wedding veil.

I only added a bow on one side because the other was covered by a headpiece I made. Here’s an unofficial shot of the veil in action where you can’t see hardly any of the headpiece. I’ll share that tomorrow!